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Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came under fire for conducting government business on her personal email account, on a private device, via a private server. She later deleted thousands of emails without an independent review as to whether the deleted emails pertained to the publics business.

The concern in both of these cases is that the publics business is being conducted in the shadows, in breach of the ethical obligation that all public servants have to be transparent and accountable.

Both Clinton and White House staff may have violated federal public records laws if they deleted electronic documents required to be preserved. However, because they deleted communications on their own accord we cant know.

This is not just a problem on the national stage. San Francisco supervisors have been criticized for using a messaging app called Telegram that also deletes messages immediately.

After San Jose city council members conducted public business on private email, the city of San Jose was taken to court for refusal to turn over those private communications in a response to a Public Records Act request.

The citys stance is that it would be too burdensome on city resources to monitor the private emails of public officialsnot to mention the invasion of privacy that would result. The San Jose case is currently before the California Supreme Court.

Transparency in government is an ethical virtue. For the public to retain its trust in government, it must have confidence that those in public service are at all times acting in the best interest of the public. As stewards of the public trust, government leaders and employees have a fiduciary responsibility to act in a manner that is accountable to the public.

The California Constitution actually mandates that the publics ability to know what government is doing is a fundamental right. The preamble to the Brown Act-Californias open meeting law- makes a clear case as to why:

The people of this State do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.

Open government policies such as public record regulations and open meeting laws ensure that those in government are acting for the common good, and they help keep a check on corruption.

All these noble concepts are for naught, however, if we do not stand up for our rights and require that the peoples business be conducted in the open. There are obvious exceptions for national security and personnel matters, but for the most part those in government have a responsibility to govern in a transparent manner.

The president should sign an executive order requiring that digital communications between executive branch employees be transmitted in such a way as to allow retention for the public record. Likewise, the State of California should update its open government laws to prohibit the use of private email accounts and devices to conduct public business.

To quote President Ronald Reagan, If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, as Jefferson cautioned, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed. It is up to us to assert our right to government in the light, not the shadows.

Hana Callaghan directs the government ethics program at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University in California. The opinions expressed are her own. She wrote this for The Mercury News.

Excerpt from:
Opinion: From San Jose council to Clinton to Trump, transparency matters - Milpitas Post

Then his boss, Hillary Clinton, lost.

Within 48 hours -- infuriated by the Cabinet prospects being floated by Donald Trump's transition team, like Wisconsin sheriff David Clarke for homeland security secretary -- Petkanas had decided he couldn't change careers yet.

"Tuesday was the election. Wednesday I was sleepless and tired and very sad," he said. "And Thursday I got extremely angry."

Petkanas quickly transitioned from Clinton's director of rapid response -- a role that made him the campaign's chief Trump hit man -- to director of the Democratic National Committee's war room, where he'd lead the party's resistance to Trump's actions.

"The signals that were coming out of the White House lit a fire under a lot of people," Petkanas said. "He re-engaged a whole slew of people, talented people, driven people, to stay in the fight."

But many of her former staffers -- especially mid-level Brooklyn veterans -- are now on the front lines of the left's anti-Trump resistance.

Some ex-Clinton staffers have moved into Democratic organizations that are shifting their focus to opposing Trump -- such as Clinton press secretary Brian Fallon, now a senior adviser to Priorities USA; policy adviser Corey Ciorciari, now helming the Center for American Progress war room's policy and research efforts; and Cristobal Alex, Clinton's national deputy director of voter outreach and mobilization, who is now the president of the Latino Victory Fund.

Others are racing to fill the holes in the Democratic Party exposed by November's results, in an effort to help activists newly energized by Trump's victory strike back in upcoming elections, at congressional town halls and more.

One example many Clinton veterans point to: Run for Something, which launched on Trump's Inauguration Day with the goal of recruiting, training and funding first-time candidates for office.

It was co-founded by Amanda Litman, the Clinton campaign's email director, who said in the immediate aftermath of the election, she was looking for a new challenge after several years in online fundraising.

After the election, though, she said she and other Clinton staffers felt like they had failed.

"Once we got over the shock and the sadness and the heavy drinking -- catching up on sleep, cleaning my apartment for the first time in six months -- a bunch of us were talking about different things," she said. "Do you stay in politics because it's incredibly important? Do you leave because you're so cynical and jaded and feel like the work we've been doing doesn't matter?"

Once Litman chose the first option, she leaned heavily on Clinton campaign staffers.

She said Run for Something was built through volunteer efforts of Clinton veterans: The campaign's website director built Run for Something's website for free; Clinton's finance team helped Litman figure out how to raise money. Many of its 1,000 operatives who have volunteered to help future candidates are Clinton alumni.

Litman said friends asked her why she wasn't spending more time going out and relaxing after the election. But she came to feel like she had two options: working, or yelling at the television as news of Trump's transition moves came in.

"One is productive and one scares my dog," she said.

Litman met her co-founder, Ross Morales Rocketto, through his wife, former Clinton digital staffer Jess Morales Rocketto -- who is now organizing airport protests and consulting for United We Dream and the National Domestic Workers Alliance in fighting Trump's executive order banning immigration from seven majority Muslim countries.

Other Clinton staffers are filling out the offices of rising Democratic stars like California Sen. Kamala Harris -- who hired ex-Clinton aides Lily Adams and Tyrone Gayle to lead her communications shop. Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal hired Clinton veteran Omer Farooque as communications director.

Clinton campaign rapid response team veteran Jesse Lehrich is leading communications for Organizing for Action, while Clinton rapid response spokeswoman Adrienne Watson is the Democratic National Committee's national press secretary.

Another former Clinton communications staffer, Xochitl Hinojosa, is advising former Labor Secretary Tom Perez -- who has called on party members to treat Trump as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell treated Obama, opposing him at every turn -- in his bid for Democratic National Committee chairman.

Jimmy Dahman, a Clinton field organizer in Iowa and then Ohio, has launched TownHallProject.com -- where he and a team of volunteers have made a point of tracking every town hall, coffee meeting or other opportunity for constituents to reach their congressional delegation.

His site's database of upcoming meetings has served as a crucial tool for progressives to identify upcoming events to attend and protest.

Dahman decided to launch the volunteer-driven project after watching a crowd of 100 spontaneously show up at a town hall held by Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colorado, to protest his support for repealing Obamacare.

"I thought, I wonder how many people feel the same way but didn't know the event exists," he said.

Former Clinton deputy national press secretary Jesse Ferguson, senior adviser Leslie Dach and communications department chief of staff Lori Lodes are all consulting for Protect Our Care, the coalition fighting Trump and congressional Republicans over the future of the Affordable Care Act.

Ferguson cited Clinton's oft-repeated Methodist creed -- "do all the good you can, for all the people you can, in all the ways you can, as long as ever you can."

"It's one that many of us took to heart," he said. "There's no better example for the idea that you get knocked down, you have to pick yourself back up. She taught us that and, for a lot of the staff, they're going to go and live that idea."

Link:
Hillary Clinton's staffers are keeping up the fight - CNN

Hillary Clinton praises Oscar de la Renta as an inspiration to striving immigrants, at an event honoring the late fashion designer with a series of commemorative stamps. (Feb. 16) AP

HIllary Clinton at the Oscar de la Renta Forever Stamp dedication ceremony at Grand Central Terminal on Feb.16, 2017 in New York City.(Photo: Noam Galai, WireImage)

She may have been the loser but Hillary Clinton is still getting the ovations, especially in her town, New York.

After a devastating loss, Clinton is recovering her New York state of mindwith the help of the Big Apple's fashion, entertainment and theater crowds, who always supported herand now have embraced her back into thefold.

It turns out that many New Yorkers loud, opinionated, even obnoxious on occasion have a soft spot for the ex-first lady, ex-senator, ex-secretary of state, ex-Democratic presidential nominee who has become one of them, even more so than native-born Donald Trump. He couldn't even win his childhood district in Queens (she got 85% of the vote; he got less than 14%).

Hillary Clinton and Anna Wintour, editor in chief of 'Vogue,' on stage during a ceremony to unveil US postal service issued Oscar de la Renta Forever stamp in New York on Feb.16, 2017. The USPS unveiled 11 stamps to commemorate Dominican-born fashion designer Oscar de la Renta, who died in October 2014, at the end of a New York fashion week. / AFP PHOTO / Jewel SAMADJEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images ORG XMIT: Hillary C ORIG FILE ID: AFP_LR7S8(Photo: JEWEL SAMAD, AFP/Getty Images)

Thus, it was Clinton who got the crowd on its feet Thursday when she appeared atGrand Central Terminal for a U.S. Postal Service ceremony unveiling a collection of 11 stamps featuring the late Oscar de la Rentaand his designs long favored by Clinton (and Ivanka Trump during her father's inaugural festivities).

Anderson Cooperwas the emcee. Vogue's fashion doyenne Anna Wintourwas there. Former Mayor Mike Bloomberg,a bigger billionaire than Trump, was there. But it was Clinton who stirred with a rousing paean to de la Renta's fashion savvy and his immigrant roots in the Dominican Republic. The pointed jab at the anti-immigration policies of the man who beat her was not lost on her audience.

"What a fitting person to be chosen by our Postal Service, mentioned, by the way, in the Constitution, something we should all read and re-read in todays times, and its choice of this immigrant, who did so much for our country, his country," she said. "And let there be many, many more immigrants with the love of America that Oscar de la Renta exemplified every single day.

Kate McKinnon, left, portraying Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Clinton, right, portraying Val, in 'Bar Talk' on 'Saturday Night Live' in October 2015.(Photo: Dana Edelson, AP)

Then there was her fun dinner with her SNL doppelganger, Kate McKinnon, at Orso Wednesday night, where much laughter was heard emanating from the table, according to The New York Post(not a fan),which tweeted a picture that was then retweeted.

And don't forget the repeated ovations when she takes her seat in an audience before showtime on Broadway; thelatest roar of cheers was on Wednesday night after the McKinnon dinner, when she turned up for the musical Sunset Boulevard at the Palace Theater, a moment documented by scores of tweets and selfies.

And it wasn't the only one. With more time for relaxing and entertainment these days,Clinton has been taking in multiple shows in New York, according to Playbill.

On Feb. 1, when she and husband Bill Clinton attended In Transit, they started chanting her name.

Earlier, on Jan. 8, when she and her husband and daughter Chelsea Clinton, showed up for the final performance of the Broadway revivalThe Color Purple, she gotseveral ovations from the sold-out audience, and another round of applause when she was acknowledged by the cast after the show, according to the New York Times.

Hillary Clinton receives standing ovation at 'The Color Purple' on Broadway

There is even talk, drummed up by the likes of the New York Postand conservative news sites such as Rightwingnews.com(definitely not fans), that Clinton would run for mayor of New York this year, challenging Democrat incumbent Bill de Blasio and possibly becoming the firstfemale mayor of the city she won with nearly 80%of its presidential vote.

So far, the scoffing about this exceeds the cheering. "Unlikely," concludesErrol Louis,host of Inside City Hallon NY1, in an essay on CNN. "It's safe to assume that nobody in her right mind certainlynobody as familiar with the workings of government and politics as Clinton would lightly take on the headaches of the nation's largest city for such nakedly political reasons."

Andif she did run, one thing is likely: The ovations would stop.

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Hillary Clinton reemerges from loss to ovations in safe NYC bubble - USA TODAY

President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were in Harlem, New York on Thursday to honor the legendary Dr. Maya Angelou days before the release of a new documentary on the late poets life and legacy.

The Clintons spoke onstage at The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, which was recently designated a national historic museum, at an event celebratingrelease of the documentary, American Masters Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise. The film, which debuts on PBS on Tuesday, delivers a remarkable inside look at who Angelou was as well as her impact and influence prior to and long after her May 2014 passing. Watch their remarks below:

The Clintons have been friends of Angelous for decades and are featured in the documentary. They were recognized at the event on Thursday by Colin Johnson, Angelous grandson, who praised the Clintons for their support and love for her over the years.

Johnson also presented the Clintons with a plaque of Angelous iconic poem, On The Pulse of Morning, which she presented at Bill Clintons presidential inauguration in 1993 upon his request she deliver remarks at the ceremony. Angelou made history in that moment, becoming the first black and the first female poet to share their work on the inaugural stage.

[Maya Angelou] was a gift to all of us who knew her, President Clinton said as he accepted the honor. Her friendship more precious than any medal or jewel and she was a true friend to Hillary in sunshine and storm. In ways large and small, public and intensely private. I treasure every encounter either one of us ever had. We are all in her debt.

Bill Clinton spoke about the impact Angelous historic book I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings and said the book riveted him because much of it was set in Stamps, Arkansas which is where Angelou spent much of her childhood and just 24 miles from where he was born. Both he and Hillary revisited unforgettable memories like these in the documentary and praised Angelou for the incredible legacy she left behind.

Maya Angelou lived enough lives for five people so she spent the second half of her life writing books about the first half, Bill Clinton joked onstage at the event. I thank you for this documentary and for giving us a chance to be a part of it.

Joseph Sinnott/2017 WNET

He then ceded the microphone to secretary Clinton, who discussed how Angelou has empowered her over the years and some of the unforgettable moments they shared together.

I was so personally grateful for her advice and support to me for a number of years and experiences, Hillary said onstage as she stood beside Bill. She and I had a wonderful time at Wake Forest in 2008. We did more laughing than talking, which I think conveyed to the students something about the resilience and enthusiasm for life that she wanted them to understand.

She the closed her remarks by reciting a few timely quotes, as she described them, from Angelous inaugural poem.

Lift up your hearts. Each new hour holds new chances. For new beginnings.Do not be wedded forever. To fear, yoked eternally to brutishness, she recited before pausing for a moment and moving to another line. The horizon leans forward, offering you space to place new steps of change.

And then it ends: Here on the pulse of this new day, you may have the grace to look up and out and into your sisters eyes, into your brothers face, your country and say simply, very simply, with hope, good morning, Clinton added. Thank you Dr. Angelou.

View original post here:
Bill And Hillary Clinton Honor Maya Angelou: 'We Are All In Her Debt' - Huffington Post

The whooping started just as we were all seated, with moments to go before the curtain rose on Wednesday evenings performance of Sunset Boulevard.

The applause and cheering were not yet for Glenn Close, back on Broadway 22 years after winning the Tony for playing Norma Desmond. She was reprising the role, having played Norma in London last year.

The audiences cheersraucous, keenly felt, and loudwere for Hillary Clinton, who was taking her aisle seat in the Palace Theatres orchestra section, close to the stage. She had just come from dinner with actress Kate McKinnon, who is perhaps most famous for portraying the former secretary of state on SNL.

The audiences rousingly warm welcome went on for so long that one wondered if Close would ever get the opportunity to take to the stage as Desmond in this Andrew Lloyd Webber productionbased on the 1950 Billy Wilder filmwhich originally began life in Londons West End in 1993 with Patti LuPone in the lead role.

With two divas in the house, who would get the biggest cheers? The audience cheered for them bothroared, more accurately.

There was an added poignancy to watching Sunset Boulevard that night. Clinton and Desmond are far from mirror imagesalthough Clintons fiercest foes may accuse her of similar delusions of grandeur and ambition as Desmond possessesbut each is an iconic, accomplished woman forced to confront the crumbling of her ambition and dreams, having attained so much success, and still possessed of so much determination and charisma.

Closes performance is, of course, goosebump-enducing and electric. An actress of her talent playing Desmond, the silent movie star left behind by the era of talkies, brings focus to Norma Desmond, the warped and wondrous personality.

Here is a movie star at once grand and detached from realitywho thinks nothing of spending thousands of dollars on Joe (Michael Xavier), the object of her affectionsand who is commanding and sharp when she wants something, fierce when crossed, and child-like and needy when rejected.

Joe, a screenwriter she is both in love with and banking on to help make her a star again, is both seduced by Normas riches and revolted by what he is becoming, and Xavier evokes him without edge.

It is Joes connections with Hollywood, and his frustrated love affair with Betty (Siobhan Dillon) that form a kind of time-filling blanket in the show (although a moving duet of theirs is sung with feeling).

All the surrounding ballast of singing and dancing in the showthe songs about Hollywood and its venal, sanity-shredding waysis a slickly executed pleasure to watch; and similarly Xaviers appearance in a pair of tight swimming trunks, his body wet, produced a number of happy whoops.

But these moments do not feature Glenn Close, and therefore, brutally, feel a little redundant. Any moment without Close on stage starts to feel like a frothy musical about those ye-gads crazy kids trying to make it in Hollywood.

Normas fantasy life of fameespecially the production of troves of fan lettershas been the responsibility of her mysterious majordomo Max (Fred Johanson), whose protection of her borders on the creepy and fanatic.

The real action is not on the sound-stages glimpsed occasionally by the audience, but Normas mansion of faded glories on Sunset Boulevard, with its winding staircase and chandeliers piled up one on top of the other.

James Noones set design of scaffolds and perches ingeniously doubles as both mansion and movie studio. Via projections on a screen, there is also wonderful use made of silent movies, and footage of old Hollywood. My theater buddy loved the cars effect (people holding two lights, whizzing about); I did not.

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Closes voice, as has been noted elsewhere, is not conventionally smooth, but then her expansive-yet-cornered Norma is far from smooth herself. The occasional talk-singing is entirely appropriate to her characters anguish and insanity.

The Sunset Boulevard showstopper, Normas As If We Never Said Goodbye, sung as she goes once again to Cecil B. DeMille (Paul Schoeffler) to restart her career and a spotlight is once again trained upon her, is intensely moving because it is a harking back to a golden age, while every note of it has the rasp of desperationNormas delusion that she can have all the fame and glory again.

Her consummate acting skills mean Don Black and Christopher Hamptons book and lyrics are not just vividly bought to life, but also with all kinds of light and dark shading, pathos and wit, and comedy and tragedy, that only Closehere at her most powerful and charismaticcan marshal believably.

Of course, the insanely dramatic outfits by Anthony Powell (bejeweled head scarves, black suits with white fur sleeves, evening gowns of shimmering excess) and the crazy diva holed up in the Hollywood mansion deliver implicit camp pleasurebucketfuls of itbut Close does not play up to that, or play it for that. By not making Norma a caricature, we see, all too painfully, her fractured reality.

Talking to Matt Lauer on Today, Close said she had delved down to try and understand Desmonds behavior, on today and in that journey of discovery you always find a place to love them.

The 22 years of aging that had elapsed between Normas had enriched her performance, Close said. The Hollywood studio system of now was just as punitive to older actresses as Norma endures in the play, she added.

Just as watching Swanson play Desmond was piercing because Swansons stardom herself was rooted in the pre-talkie era (and Swanson-as-Desmond watched Swansons Queen Kelly in Wilders movie), so Closes own Hollywood status bleeds over on to the stage.

Closes habitation of Norma is ultimately tragic and triumphant; her final appearance, as she prepares to face law enforcement believing them to be her beloved cameras, is wrenching and ridiculous, as she descends that grand staircase like a nervous crab suddenly becoming a jaunty flapper girl.

As throughout, the genius here is in Closes phrasing, which first gently declares that she will never desert DeMille again (even though he is the one doing the deserting), thensung slightly harderthat this is her life and always will be, thenshe almost spits outThere is nothing else, just this, to suddenly softly invoking those wonderful people out there in the dark, the cinema audiences, who have given her, quite literally, life.

The night our audience saw it Clintons presence bought an additional charge and layer to the emotion. At the interval, she graciously received many peoples thanks, requests for photographs, and participatory selfies. They queued, and crowded around her. One woman put her hand gently to her chest, and thanked Clinton for all she had done.

There was more applause and cheering and shouted support for Clinton before act two, and then at the end of the show she was hustled discreetly backstage with minimal fuss to meet Close, who had herself just left the stage after multiple ovations, which will no doubt be repeateddeservedlythroughout the run.

But there was only this one performance where at least elements of Sunset Boulevardnot Normas self-delusion, but rather the diminishment of a powerful woman, painfully, in front of her own eyes; and her determination to survive in the face of thatthat may have echoed quite so piercingly within Hillary Clinton, sitting watching Sunset Boulevard from the stalls.

Sunset Boulevardis at the Palace Theatre, 1564 Broadway, until June 25.Book tickets here.

More here:
When Hillary Clinton Met Norma Desmond: Review of 'Sunset Boulevard' on Broadway - Daily Beast