Friday, March 18, 2016
Fired professor Melissa Click: I had 'inexperience with public protests'
Melissa Click and the University of Missouri are taking their cases to the court of public opinion.
On the same day the ex-MU assistant communications professor penned a Washington Post defense of her actions – which included assaulting a student journalist and yelling profanities at a police officer – the governing board that fired her pushed back, telling the Association of American University Professors on Thursday that Click’s ouster was demanded because “existing university procedures failed to address the seriousness of [her] conduct.”
Click claims she didn’t get due process before The University of Missouri System’s governing board fired her last month. Her appeal of that decision was rejected Tuesday.
In the Post piece, Click takes responsibility for her actions – which occurred during campus protests over perceived racial inequality at MU – however, she also excuses them as the deeds of someone who had “inexperience with public protests.”
She added, “But I do not understand the widespread impulse to shame those whose best intentions unfortunately result in imperfect actions. What would our world be like if no one ever took a chance? What if everyone played it safe?”
Click said her situation raised “broader cultural, ethical and legal questions about how surveillance and social media significantly impact the terrain of public engagement.”
Her confrontation with a student journalist attempting to cover campus protests in November was caught on the journalist’s camera. Her incident with police in October, at the university’s homecoming parade, was caught on an officer’s bodycam, and the footage was obtained by The Missourian. Both videos quickly made the rounds on social media.
“Whose interests are served when our drive to combat societal imperfections is defeated by fears of having our individual imperfections exposed?” she wrote in The Post.
The AAUP is investigating the circumstances surrounding Click’s firing. The UM board replied to the group’s concerns in a letter, instead of meeting with the association’s three-person investigative committee, The Missourian reported.
Threatening letter reportedly sent to Donald Trump's son
New York City police were investigating a threatening letter sent to one of the sons of Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump late Thursday, authorities said.
According to the New York Post, a letter bearing a Massachusetts postmark and addressed to Eric Trump, 32, was delivered to his residence on Manhattan's Central Park South.
According to the paper, white powder fell out of the envelope when Eric Trump's wife, Lara Yunaska, opened it. Police, fire crews and the FBI all responded to the scene.
It was not immediately clear what the substance was.
CBS News also reported that the letter warned that Donald Trump's children would be harmed if the real estate mogul did not withdraw from the presidential race.
Hillary isn't winning over many pundits, even on the left
Hillary Clinton is clobbering Bernie Sanders—and yet getting negative reviews from some of the pundits.
How is that possible? The Democratic race is essentially over. President Obama is privately telling donors it’s time to get on the Hillary train, the New York Times reports. A front-runner who wins in state after state usually basks in a winner’s aura as the party coalesces around her, and draws glowing profiles of how she and her team did it.
Sure, Hillary was always expected to beat Bernie. It’s also true that Clinton has never been beloved by the press, and the feeling is mutual.
But the larger problem is the outlook as the commentary class looks ahead to the fall.
Until the last couple of weeks, the conventional wisdom was that a Trump nomination would all but assure a second Clinton presidency. After all, she’s the former senator and secretary of State with an awesome political machine, and he’s the untested billionaire with a penchant for divisive rhetoric. Plus, Democrats have an Electoral College edge and have won the popular vote in five of the last six campaigns.
But some commentators see troubling signs in Clinton’s performance so far and wonder how she would withstand a Trump onslaught. The Donald has high negatives, to be sure, but Hillary does as well.
An unsparing assessment comes from Joe Klein, who has
known the Clintons for a quarter century and mostly written
sympathetically about them since his 1992 New York magazine cover story
on Bill Clinton.
Klein agrees with Hillary’s self-assessment that she is not a natural politician, but goes much further in weighing a Trump matchup:
“Clinton seems particularly ill equipped for the task. She is our very own quinoa and kale salad, nutritious but bland. Worse, she’s the human embodiment of the Establishment that Trump has been running against…
“Indeed, her real problem is that she’s too much of a politician. She still speaks like politicians did 20 years ago, when her husband was President. This year, the candidates who have seemed the most appealing–Trump, Sanders, John Kasich–don’t use the oratorical switchbacks that have been beaten to death since John F. Kennedy.”
It’s no secret that Sanders has pushed Clinton to the left on trade, immigration, Wall Street and other issues. But Klein says that is often viewed as dissembling:
“There is an odd new law of U.S. politics: You can lie, as Trump does all the time, egregiously, but you can’t temporize. You can’t avoid a position on the XL pipeline or the Trans-Pacific trade deal, as Clinton tried to do in the campaign. You can’t try to please too many people too much of the time. Raising your voice to make a point–which Clinton does all the time, disastrously, because it seems such a conscious act–won’t get you anywhere unless you’re really angry.
“In the end, I’m not at all certain that Clinton can beat Trump.”
A note about her speaking style: When Clinton won five states on Tuesday night, I tweeted that she was shouting her speech and that it would be more effective with the audience at home if she was more conversational. I didn’t say she was shrill, I didn’t say she should smile, and in the past I’ve criticized Sanders for shouting his way through debates.
But I was hit with hundreds of tweets declaring me to be a horrible, misogynistic sexist. Some of this was a wave powered by what others had said about her speech. Maybe my quick take was wrong. But I hope we’re not entering a period where any criticism of the presumptive Democratic nominee is treated as sexism.
Other left-wing pundits, driven in part by ideology, fear the worst. This Salon headline boils it down:
“Hillary Will Never Survive the Trump Onslaught: It’s Not Fair, But It Makes Her a Weak Nominee.”
Clinton’s largest problem, in my view, is her low polling marks on honesty, a result of the email scandal and perhaps decades of scars of accumulated accusations, some of them fair and some exaggerated.
Veteran journalist Jeff Greenfield, writing earlier in Politico, spells out three reasons why Clinton could prove to be a weak candidate:
“First, Hillary Clinton commands little trust among an electorate that is driven today by mistrust. Second, her public life—the posts she has held, the positions she has adopted (and jettisoned)—define her as a creature of the ‘establishment’ at a time when voters regard the very idea with deep antipathy. And finally, however she wishes it were not so, however much she argues that she represents the future as America’s first prospective female president,
Clinton still embodies the past, just as she did in 2008 when she lost to Barack Obama. The combination of those three factors is already playing out in the Democratic primary, where younger voters are turning away from her and embracing a geriatric, white-haired alternative in droves.”
When Clinton recalibrates, says Greenfield, “she always embraces the politically popular stand.”
However lukewarm the Democratic base may be about Hillary, she enjoys broad support within the party and most Bernie backers should have no trouble shifting their allegiance to her. The same can’t be said for Trump, who is weathering a Republican revolt against the likelihood of his winning the nomination.
We’ll know Hillary is solving her enthusiasm problem when she starts getting better reviews from journalists on the left.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.
How is that possible? The Democratic race is essentially over. President Obama is privately telling donors it’s time to get on the Hillary train, the New York Times reports. A front-runner who wins in state after state usually basks in a winner’s aura as the party coalesces around her, and draws glowing profiles of how she and her team did it.
Sure, Hillary was always expected to beat Bernie. It’s also true that Clinton has never been beloved by the press, and the feeling is mutual.
But the larger problem is the outlook as the commentary class looks ahead to the fall.
Until the last couple of weeks, the conventional wisdom was that a Trump nomination would all but assure a second Clinton presidency. After all, she’s the former senator and secretary of State with an awesome political machine, and he’s the untested billionaire with a penchant for divisive rhetoric. Plus, Democrats have an Electoral College edge and have won the popular vote in five of the last six campaigns.
But some commentators see troubling signs in Clinton’s performance so far and wonder how she would withstand a Trump onslaught. The Donald has high negatives, to be sure, but Hillary does as well.
The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →
Klein agrees with Hillary’s self-assessment that she is not a natural politician, but goes much further in weighing a Trump matchup:
“Clinton seems particularly ill equipped for the task. She is our very own quinoa and kale salad, nutritious but bland. Worse, she’s the human embodiment of the Establishment that Trump has been running against…
“Indeed, her real problem is that she’s too much of a politician. She still speaks like politicians did 20 years ago, when her husband was President. This year, the candidates who have seemed the most appealing–Trump, Sanders, John Kasich–don’t use the oratorical switchbacks that have been beaten to death since John F. Kennedy.”
It’s no secret that Sanders has pushed Clinton to the left on trade, immigration, Wall Street and other issues. But Klein says that is often viewed as dissembling:
“There is an odd new law of U.S. politics: You can lie, as Trump does all the time, egregiously, but you can’t temporize. You can’t avoid a position on the XL pipeline or the Trans-Pacific trade deal, as Clinton tried to do in the campaign. You can’t try to please too many people too much of the time. Raising your voice to make a point–which Clinton does all the time, disastrously, because it seems such a conscious act–won’t get you anywhere unless you’re really angry.
“In the end, I’m not at all certain that Clinton can beat Trump.”
A note about her speaking style: When Clinton won five states on Tuesday night, I tweeted that she was shouting her speech and that it would be more effective with the audience at home if she was more conversational. I didn’t say she was shrill, I didn’t say she should smile, and in the past I’ve criticized Sanders for shouting his way through debates.
But I was hit with hundreds of tweets declaring me to be a horrible, misogynistic sexist. Some of this was a wave powered by what others had said about her speech. Maybe my quick take was wrong. But I hope we’re not entering a period where any criticism of the presumptive Democratic nominee is treated as sexism.
Other left-wing pundits, driven in part by ideology, fear the worst. This Salon headline boils it down:
“Hillary Will Never Survive the Trump Onslaught: It’s Not Fair, But It Makes Her a Weak Nominee.”
Clinton’s largest problem, in my view, is her low polling marks on honesty, a result of the email scandal and perhaps decades of scars of accumulated accusations, some of them fair and some exaggerated.
Veteran journalist Jeff Greenfield, writing earlier in Politico, spells out three reasons why Clinton could prove to be a weak candidate:
“First, Hillary Clinton commands little trust among an electorate that is driven today by mistrust. Second, her public life—the posts she has held, the positions she has adopted (and jettisoned)—define her as a creature of the ‘establishment’ at a time when voters regard the very idea with deep antipathy. And finally, however she wishes it were not so, however much she argues that she represents the future as America’s first prospective female president,
Clinton still embodies the past, just as she did in 2008 when she lost to Barack Obama. The combination of those three factors is already playing out in the Democratic primary, where younger voters are turning away from her and embracing a geriatric, white-haired alternative in droves.”
When Clinton recalibrates, says Greenfield, “she always embraces the politically popular stand.”
However lukewarm the Democratic base may be about Hillary, she enjoys broad support within the party and most Bernie backers should have no trouble shifting their allegiance to her. The same can’t be said for Trump, who is weathering a Republican revolt against the likelihood of his winning the nomination.
We’ll know Hillary is solving her enthusiasm problem when she starts getting better reviews from journalists on the left.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.
Moving Pieces: GOP alliances shift in bids to block, boost Trump
Donald Trump’s emergence as the big fish in a now-tiny pool of three remaining Republican presidential candidates has touched off a remarkable scramble by political powerbrokers to quickly choose sides, all while talk of a potential independent run isn’t going away.
The feverish effort to either boost or block Trump is leading to unexpected alliances as some hitch their name to the GOP front-runner, and others do whatever they can to try and thwart him. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a former candidate who previously had backed Jeb Bush, was the latest surprise, announcing Thursday he’s now banking on Ted Cruz.
Graham bluntly acknowledged he prefers Ohio Gov. John Kasich – but said only Texas Sen. Cruz has a path to defeating Trump in the primary.
“If we give the banner of the Republican Party to Donald Trump, we tarnish it, maybe, forever. That might be the end of the Republican Party as we know it,” warned Graham, who plans to hold a fundraiser for the Texas senator.
On the sidelines, a trio of conservative leaders also held a meeting in Washington Thursday to discuss a “stop-Trump” strategy. As first reported by Politico, Erick Erickson, the founder of RedState.com, was joined by former adviser to President George. W. Bush Bill Wichterman, and South Dakota businessman Bob Fischer.
Erickson told Fox News on Thursday the meeting was attended by conservative activists who see the Trump candidacy as a threat to the conservative cause. “Contrary to what the Trump campaign says, it wasn’t the elite. … It was the guys who have been knocking on doors for Republican candidates for decades – people who are actually committed to conservative principles ahead of the party,” he said.
The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →
Graham, for instance, previously had taken to trashing Cruz in interviews. He told CNN last month the senator might be worse than President Obama and if the GOP choice is between Trump and Cruz, "it's the difference between poisoned or shot -- you're still dead."
Now, Graham is setting those misgivings aside as the prospect of Trump winning the nomination becomes increasingly likely.
Even Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, while stopping short of an endorsement, reportedly said Wednesday that Cruz is the “only conservative left in the race.” Back on Capitol Hill Thursday, Rubio said “there is still time to stop a Trump presidency.” Meanwhile, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who had backed Rubio, says she’s now rooting for Cruz.
At the Erickson meeting, among the options reportedly being discussed was sending a last-minute candidate to the convention in Cleveland if no candidate reaches the coveted 1,237 delegates and the convention is deadlocked.
He told Fox News the biggest consensus point was that both Trump and Hillary Clinton are unacceptable candidates for the presidency. Regarding a strategy to defeat Trump, he said “the consensus was that everyone would rather settle this on the convention floor at the Republican convention in Cleveland.”
Though the main strategy is to use convention rules and delegate math to deny Trump the nomination, Erickson did not rule out a last-minute effort to run an independent candidate if Trump ultimately wins the nomination in Cleveland.
The meeting comes just days after Trump won at least three states, including Florida’s 99 delegate winner-take-all contest, and declared victory in a fourth, Missouri.
Before Tuesday, Cruz also had ex-candidates Rick Perry and Carly Fiorina in his corner.
But even as Cruz gains additional support, Trump and Ohio Gov. John Kasich are gaining new backers.
Trump already had the endorsements of former candidates Chris Christie and Ben Carson. He added to that the support this week of Florida Gov. Rick Scott.
“Donald Trump is clearly the will of the voters. We need to listen to them, coalesce behind him,” Scott told Fox News.
And Kasich has picked up support from Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, as well as from former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt. Utah votes next week, alongside Arizona.
“Governor John Kasich had a decisive and critical win in Ohio,” Leavitt said in a statement. “I trust his temperament and the tone of his campaign. I worked closely with Governor Kasich over many years and I have witnessed his ability to bring people together to get things done. I think he has the best opportunity to beat Hillary Clinton.”
While Trump vows he will eventually win the nomination, party leaders are unsure whether he might enter the convention with the requisite 1,237 delegates. House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday it’s becoming more likely that the convention will be open.
But Trump could still emerge the nominee at a contested convention.
Former Speaker Newt Gingrich told Fox News on Thursday that the talk of a contested convention is only complicating the process. He said Trump and Cruz have 80 percent of the delegates and any insurgent candidate from the establishment would be taken down by the two.
“It’s an amusing parlor game, it has no meaning in the real world,” Gingrich said. “If they want to form the let’s elect Hillary Clinton club, fine.”
There was yet another reported plot to thwart Trump. Earlier in the month, it was reported that Bush met with Rubio, Cruz, and Kasich individually before last Thursday’s debate in Miami. Rubio’s spokesperson then urged his supporters to vote for Kasich in Ohio, a state he won.
Additionally, Cruz pulled advertising and campaign staffers from both Florida and Ohio.
Trump, meanwhile, continues to face a string of controversies. He was scolded by Ryan on Thursday after saying there could be “riots” if he’s not chosen at the convention. The Daily Caller also reported that a Trump op-ed published in a Guam publication appeared to be partly plagiarized from an op-ed from Carson published in a Northern Mariana Islands publication.
Thursday, March 17, 2016
Clinton tried to change rules to use BlackBerry in secure facility for classified information
Less than a month after becoming secretary of state, and registering the personal email domain that she would use exclusively for government business, Hillary Clinton’s team aggressively pursued changes to existing State Department security protocols so she could use her BlackBerry in secure facilities for classified information, according to new documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.
“Anyone who has any appreciation at all of security, you don’t ask a question like that,” cybersecurity analyst Morgan Wright told Fox News. “It is contempt for the system, contempt for the rules that are designed to protect the exact kind of information that was exposed through this email set up. “
Current and former intelligence officials grimaced when asked by Fox News about the use of wireless communications devices, such as a BlackBerry, in a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) emphasizing its use would defeat the purpose of the secure facility, and it is standard practice to leave all electronics outside.
A former State Department employee familiar with the Clinton request emphasized security personnel at the time thought the BlackBerry was only for unclassified material, adding their concerns would have been magnified if they had known Clinton's email account also held classified material.
“When you allow devices like this into a SCIF, you can allow the bad guys to listen in,” Wright added.
A February 17, 2009 email marked SECRET and cleared through the NSA says, “Ms. Mills described the requirement as chiefly driven by Secretary Clinton, who does not use standard computer equipment but relies exclusively on her Blackberry for emailing and remaining in contact on her schedule etc. Ideally all members of her suite would be allowed to use Blackberries for communication in the SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility)”
Cheryl Mills was Clinton’s chief of staff from 2009-13.
The emails, obtained by Judicial Watch as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit also show that a specialized NSA team was brought in to assess the vulnerabilities and feasibility of using wireless communications, including within a secure facility.
The NSA State Department liaison, whose name was withheld, told Mills in a now highly redacted email: “Sometimes the distinction between what can be done and what is, or is not, recommended to be done differ; this is one of those instances. (State Department Diplomatic Security) DS’s response illustrates their level of concern based on their extensive professional expertise. “
Another memo from March 2009, obtained by Judicial Watch through its FOIA lawsuit, from Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Eric Boswell to Mills explicitly warned, “the vulnerabilities and risks associated with the use of Blackberries in Mahogany Row [seventh floor executive offices] considerably outweigh their convenience.” Clinton has claimed she used the personal account and BlackBerry for convenience.
Clinton never used a State Department issued BlackBerry. It is not clear from the documents whether Clinton and her team went ahead and used their BlackBerrys in SCIFs despite the concerns, including those of the NSA. Though a state department official said "no waiver allowing PDAs within Mahogany Row was granted.".
A February 18 2009 email from the State Department’s Senior Coordinator for Security Infrastructure, Donald R. Reid, states “…once she (Clinton) got the hang of it, she was hooked, now every day, she feels hamstrung because she has to lock up her BB up. She does go out several times a day to an office they have crafted for her outside the SCIF and plays email catch-up. Cheryl Mills and others who are dedicated BB addicts are frustrated because they too are not near their desktop very often during the working day…”
The reference to a secondary office for Clinton appears to conflict with a February statement from the State Department that no stand-alone computer was set up outside Clinton’s main office on the executive floor, known as Mahogany Row, to check her personal account.
On February 25, Fox News pressed the State Department spokesman about a January 2009 email, also obtained by Judicial Watch, between Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy and then Clinton chief of staff Mills where Kennedy said it was a “great idea” to setup a stand-alone PC for Clinton to check her email.
The State Department said Wednesday no computer was set up but confirmed there was a space created to accommodate Clinton's personal email use. "There is an area dedicated to supporting the secretary outside but in the immediate vicinity of the secretary's secure office. Secretary Clinton, as with anyone, could use such non-SCIF spaces to check personal devices.," a State Department official said.
Clinton did not use a government-issued BlackBerry that was certified as secure for government use. Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy recently told the Benghazi Select Committee that he knew about Clinton's personal account from the earliest days, but did not understand the extent of its use, even though he sent State Department business to Clinton via the Clintonemail account.
In January 2009, Clinton signed at least two non-disclosure agreements in which she promised to protect classified information. Since then, more than 2,100 emails containing classified information have been identified, as well as 22 Top Secret that are too damaging to national security to release.
Earlier this week, Judicial Watch presented the federal court in Washington with a list of 7 Clinton aides it wants to question under oath about Clinton’s use of a private email sever when she was secretary of state.
5 North Carolina deputies disciplined in connection with Trump campaign rally
The Cumberland County Sheriff’s office announced Wednesday it disciplined five deputies who it says watched and did nothing when a protester being escorted from a Fayetteville, North Carolina Donald Trump rally was punched by a Trump supporter.
Three of the deputies were demoted and were also suspended without pay for five days while the other two were suspended without pay for three days, the sheriff’s office said in a statement. All five deputies face one year of probation.
In a statement, Sheriff Earl “Moose” Butler said the deputies faced disciplinary action for "unsatisfactory performance and failing to discharge the duties and policies of the office of the sheriff."
"The actions of the deputies and their failures to act in situations such as that which occurred during the Trump rally at the Crown Coliseum have never been and will never be tolerated under the policies of this office," he said.
Several of the disciplined deputies were involved with the confrontation of a man who went on a deadly shooting spree killing family members and assaulting deputies with an assault rifle in July 2014.
The sheriff’s office said their actions in that situation factored into their punishment.
The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →
On Monday, authorities said there wasn’t enough evidence to press charges against Trump for his behavior in connection with the violent altercation.
In a statement issued Monday night, the sheriff’s office said legal counsel advised and Butler agreed that the evidence doesn't meet the requisites of North Carolina law to support a conviction for inciting a riot.
Authorities have already charged a rally attendee with assault, disorderly conduct and communicating threats after he was caught on video hitting a man being led out by deputies at the event in Fayetteville.
At one point during the rally, Trump described a previous event in which a protester traded punches with his supporters. Trump told the audience: "They started punching back. It was a beautiful thing."
In a statement, Trump's campaign said, "the arena was rented for a private event, paid for by the campaign and these people attended with the intent to cause trouble.
They were only there to agitate and anger the crowd. It is the protesters and agitators who are in violation, not Mr. Trump or the campaign."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
-
Tit for Tat ? ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — A statue of abolitionist Frederick Douglass was ripped from its base in Rochester on the an...
-
NEW YORK (AP) — As New York City faced one of its darkest days with the death toll from the coronavirus surging past 4,000 — more th...