“Now I don’t know how many of you know people who struggle with these illnesses, but if you’ve got a problem with schizophrenia you find yourself in a prison? It’s a disgrace in this country.”

Mark Wilson / Getty Images

Ohio Gov. and likely Republican presidential candidate John Kasich argued last week that the number of mentally ill people in prison is "a disgrace" and touted the changes made by his administration to help treat those afflicted.

Speaking on May 26 at a GOP luncheon in Fulton County, Georgia, Kasich recalled how, when questioned by his daughter, he could not justify the practice of imprisoning the mentally ill.

"We have 10,000 people in our prisons who have mental illness," Kasich said, apparently referring to an estimate for the state of Ohio. "Reese and I were watching 60 Minutes one Sunday and they were having this story of them locking the mentally ill up in the prisons and she looked at me and she said, 'Daddy, why are those people being locked up?' I couldn't answer her satisfactorily, other than to say, 'We seem to ignore these people.' Now I don't know how many of you know people who struggle with these illnesses but if you've got a problem with schizophrenia and you find yourself in a prison? It's a disgrace in this country."

Kasich further said that, though he considered the movement to legalize drugs a form of "insanity," his administration was committed to "rehabbing the drug addicted," including those behind bars.

"We believe that by treating people in the prisons and releasing them into the community for treatment, our recidivism rate could be as low as 10% with them," he claimed. "Our recidivism rate in Ohio in our prisons is 27%, as opposed to a 50% national average. So we give people a chance and hope, if they want to work their way out."

Though reports have shown that, in Ohio, as in the country as a whole, there are approximately 10 times as many mentally ill people in prison as in psychiatric hospitals, Kasich's administration had taken efforts to ameliorate the issue. A budget released in February called for doubling the funding of addiction services in prisons, an acknowledgment that, as Kasich said in his speech last Tuesday, "80% of the people in our prisons" have a history of substance abuse. The budget was also designed to encourage judges to put first-time, nonviolent offenders in community programs, as opposed to prison. Kasich also signed a bill clarifying the right of judges to order outpatient treatments for people over 18 who are suffering from mental illness.

At the lunch in Georgia, Kasich appeared to reiterate a defense of his decision to accept federal money to expand Medicaid, an option rejected by many of his Republican peers, who say the program will ultimately cost states more money.

Medicaid covers substance abuse treatment — though, during the program's expansion under Obamacare, there have been some problems with actually delivering substance abuse coverage to greater numbers.

"Now I went and brought $14 billion in the process of bringing $14 billion back from Washington to help solve — it's our money, it's Ohio money. There's no money in Washington, by the way. It's all ours. We sent it there," he said. "So I'm bringing as much of mine as I can get back. So now we are treating the mentally ill."

Here is the audio:

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Here's the full audio of his speech:

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The former Hewlett-Packard CEO is a vocal opponent of “giant bureaucratic” education programs, but in 1989, she said the federal government should have a role in creating and disbursing education standards.

Charlie Neibergall / AP

In recent interviews, Carly Fiorina has denounced the Common Core State Standards as a "a giant bureaucratic program" and "a really bad idea." In her master's thesis, however, Fiorina advocated for a "consistent, long-term role" for the federal government in determining education policy, including the development of recommended curriculum guidelines.

In her thesis, submitted in 1989 at MIT's Sloan School of Management and made available on Fiorina's 2010 California senate campaign website, the Republican presidential candidate wrote that the federal government "can provide curriculum 'guidelines' for consideration by local school districts and state legislatures."

She emphasized that such guidelines could be used as "powerful supportive rationale for recommended decisions" when faced with pressure from politicians or businesses with opposing interests.

Her argument for the federal government to play a centralized role in developing education standards is one of the reasons Fiorina today says she opposes Common Core -- a set of recommended guidelines developed by state governors and education leaders that indicate what knowledge students should acquire at each grade level.

In an interview with Fox News' Chris Wallace Sunday, Fiorina criticized the program as "a nationally driven set of bureaucratic standards that teaches teachers how to teach" and "teaches children how to learn."

She told CNBC in May that, "I think Common Core is a really bad idea. It is a giant bureaucratic program and we have demonstrated over 40 years that the Department of Education can get bigger and bigger and bigger and the quality of education continues to deteriorate. I think it's pretty clear based on those facts that giving more money to the Department of Education doesn't improve learning in the classroom."

Many Republican presidential candidates, with the exception of Jeb Bush, have criticized the Common Core program, accusing the federal government of encroaching on a state and local matter.

While the standards were not, in fact, developed or implemented by the federal government, the Obama administration has embraced them, pushing states to adopt the standards through a competitive grant program called "Race to the Top." The standards have been adopted in part or in full by 44 states and the District of Columbia.

Fiorina more recently has advocated for expanding school choice policies and local control of education. In her thesis, Fiorina wrote that "pro-choice" school proposals are not a "panacea," and would still require federal support -- and federal funding -- to succeed.

A spokeswoman for the Fiorina campaign dismissed similarities between recommendations made in Fiorina's thesis and Common Core, telling BuzzFeed News that the candidate has always favored "state driven accountability. "

"Common Core, which obviously wasn't around when she wrote her thesis 25 years ago, has been a set of standards created in DC and driven by the education-industrial complex seeking to commercialize our students," a spokeswoman for the Fiorina campaign told BuzzFeed News. "What she is referring to in her thesis isn't even close to the same thing."

"Carly favors state driven accountability, which she did in her thesis, did in 2010 and she does now. That is emphatically not what Common Core has been or become."

Fiorina's paper calls for a "consistent, long-term role" for the federal government on education issues.

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Veteran Democratic strategist Mo Elleithee is leaving the DNC after two years.

Mo Elleithee is pictured with Hillary Clinton in 2008.

AP Photo/Charles Dharapak

WASHINGTON — Veteran Democratic strategist Mo Elleithee is leaving the Democratic National Committee, two sources told BuzzFeed News.

On Monday, Elleithee will become head of the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service. The new institute will be part of the Georgetown's McCourt School of Public Policy, according to a press release.

Elleithee did not immediately return an email message seeking comment, but confirmed the news in a Medium post Tuesday.

"For nearly twenty years I've been on the frontlines of politics," he wrote. "I've worked for four different presidential candidates, and countless Senators, Governors, and other federal, state and local candidates. I've worked for the Democratic Party, for progressive interest groups, and even a SuperPAC.

"During that time I've said mean, nasty, terrible things about my political opponents — in part because that's what I was trained to do, in part because I believed those things."

A majority of those nasty, terrible things were directed at Republicans, who had nice things to say about him Tuesday.

"While Mo and I clearly don't align ideologically or politically, he is a highly effective communicator and phenomenal individual," GOP Communications Director Sean Spicer wrote in an email statement to BuzzFeed News. "As good as he is, he clearly saw the struggles Hillary Clinton faces only getting worse. This is a huge pick up for Georgetown and major loss for the DNC. I am honored to am to call him a friend and wish him the best going forward."

Elleithee's new role at his alma mater will focus on the next ideas on "how to make our political system work better," he wrote on Medium.

Elleithee had been the DNC's communications director since August 2013 and informed senior staff of his departure Tuesday morning sources said.

Elleithee had a keen eye on 2016, with a special emphasis on strategy for the party's debate and convention programming. The convention will take place in Philadelphia during the last week of July 2016.

Jeb Bush’s correspondence with the Department of Education shows the Florida Republican offered to help Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on the re-authorization of the controversial education law.

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

In an email from 2009 obtained by BuzzFeed News, Jeb Bush offered assistance to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on reauthorizing No Child Left Behind – the controversial education legislation signed into law by President George W. Bush.

In the email, the former Florida governor proposes a meeting between Patricia Levesque, at the time the executive director of Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education, and a high-level official at the Department of Education.

Among the topics to be discussed: how Levesque could "help" the Obama administration re-authorize No Child Left Behind.

The law, which technically expired in 2007 but has remained on the books, mandates annual statewide testing for every grade and penalizes schools for poor performance. The law is unpopular with both Democrats and Republicans, but in efforts to replace the law, the Obama administration has fought to retain as much of the law's strong federal role as possible, maintaining elements like mandatory annual testing, federal grant programs, and government oversight of achievement by students, especially minorities.

The issue has pitted Jeb Bush against most of his fellow Republicans, who oppose any federal government role in education. In a March op-ed in The Washington Post, however, Bush wrote in support of a limited role for the federal government in education, instead arguing for the states to take the lead.

The 2009 email is one of several pieces of correspondence between Bush and the Department of Education, obtained by BuzzFeed News by way of the Freedom of Information Act.

The email, dated May 29, 2009 -- just over four months after Duncan took office -- begins with Bush expressing his regret that Duncan had declined his invitation to keynote Excellence in Action 2009, the second annual "national summit on education reform" put on by Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education.

"Hopefully, we can get you to come to another event down the road," Bush writes.

"Also, Patricia Levesque, the executive director of the Foundation I Chair will be in D.C. in late June," Bush continues, "and i would love for her to meet with one of your top staff, to tell them about Florida progress, help you in nclb reauthorization or in bold initiatives to advance reform, etc."

Bush concludes: "I hope you are enjoying your job!!!!"

Here's Bush's email offering to help with No Child Left Behind:

BuzzFeed News / Via Department of Education

The re-authorization of No Child Left Behind is not the only controversial issue on which Bush offered assistance to the White House. Last week, BuzzFeed News reported that Duncan turned to Bush for advice about how to deal with Florida Governor Rick Scott's objections to Common Core.

A hand-written note from Duncan to Bush in 2013 shows Duncan's appreciation for Bush's efforts to reach across the aisle.

"I know this is hard, but your continued courage and clarity of thought is vital to giving our nation's children a chance in life," Duncan writes. "They are lucky to have someone with your tenacity as their champion."

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“I want more time spent — in fact, I told them last night, I would take the billions we’re spending collecting all Americans records and I would hire 1,000 new FBI agents to specifically go after the jihadists.”

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Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky says a good replacement for the government collecting telephone metadata on millions of Americans would be to hire 1,000 FBI agents to "go after jihadists."

"All I am asking for is not to collect everybody's records indiscriminately," Paul said on the Glenn Beck Program on Monday.

"I want more time spent — in fact, I told them last night, I would take the billions we're spending collecting all Americans records and I would hire 1,000 new FBI agents to specifically go after the jihadists. The FBI said this week, they don't have enough man power. Let's hire more but let's quit indiscriminately looking at American's records."

Paul opposed any extension of the Patriot Act and made particular emphasis on the National Security Agency's bulk collection of data. The Senate agreed to a modified reauthorization of the Patriot Act that has small changes to intelligence agencies' control over the bulk collection of data.

"One of them is the provision that says that the government can collect records that are relevant to an investigation," Paul said earlier discussing provisions of the Patriot Act that had expired.

"The problem here is that the government has used that provision to collect all the phone records from all Americans. And the court said that this is illegal because how can they be relevant if you are not just getting some of them? If you are getting all of them, how can you say that every record in America is relevant to an investigation? So the court rebuked them, said it's illegal."

Paul said he didn't trust the president "to be looking at all the phone records of every American," because of the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny.

"I don't trust this president to be looking at all the phone records of every American. They haven't been very trustworthy the IRS, or religious groups or tea party groups, I don't really want this president to have all of our phone records. The good news is that in the battle, the one thing that will come out of this week is the government will no longer be collecting in bulk your phone records now there is a question whether the replacement will actually work because I think it's still going to allow the phone companies to have mass collection of and sorting through all of the American phone records so I'm still concerned about it but I think it will be a step forward."

Paul said he didn't have a problem with private companies storing records as long as they only gave it to the government when they had warrant. Paul said he wanted to "look at more records of terrorists."

"No, and in fact, that's the whole argument," said Paul. "I want to look at more records of terrorists. I just don't want to look at records of all Americans for whom no suspicion has been presented."

Paul presented the example of the Boston bombers, saying he would "absolutely" given warrants for their records if he was a judge.

"For example the Boston bomber, if you had come to me the year before the bombing and say well, and let's say I'm a judge, well you will ask me, 'Well, the Russians have tipped us off and we have some evidence that he's going to fly back to Chechnya, would you let us tap his phone?'"

"And I would say 'absolutely, without a heartbeat.'"

"And they would say 'Well, he called 100 people and five of them live in Chechnya, can we trace their phone calls too?'

"'Absolutely,'" Paul said.

“I’ve been, you know, criticized for this decision. Do you think it bothers me? It doesn’t. And we’ve helped a lot of people. And my folks have probably saved some lives in the process. And so I think it was the right decision.”

Skip Peterson / AP

Ohio Gov. John Kasich has faced criticism from fellow Republicans for his decision to accept federal funds to expand his state's Medicaid program under Obamacare.

At a GOP luncheon in Fulton County, Georgia, on May 26, Kasich explained his decision, saying it was sustainable in his state and that it helped Ohio's poor.

"It is absolutely sustainable in my state," Kasich said. "And frankly, what I really want is--I really want the federal government to block grant that program back to me. And let me operate my program for the poor in Ohio. I shouldn't have to come on bended knees."

"And so I think a lot of these programs ought to be sent back. We can take fewer dollars in many cases if they just get rid of the strings."

He noted that the Medicaid expansion has "helped a lot of people."

"My choice in that decision was to ignore some of the most vulnerable people in our population. I've been, you know, criticized for this decision. Do you think it bothers me? It doesn't. And we've helped a lot of people. And my folks have probably saved some lives in the process. And so I think it was the right decision," Kasich said.

"And everybody's got to decide. That's why we have states. Everybody has to decide what works best for them and whatever they decided here is great. And, in our state, we're pleased that we've been able to do this."

Kasich said that the $14 billion Ohio accepted from the federal government was just money Ohioans had sent to Washington in the first place and that it would save the state money in other ways.

"Here's how it works: again, we're bringing back $14 billion--the first, I don't know, two, three, four years--the federal government just sends our money back, which is our money."

Kasich built upon comments he made earlier at the lunch, asserting that treating the mentally ill would lower state expenditures on prison inmates and emergency rooms.

"Our prison population--think about this," he suggested to his audience, "If I don't treat the mentally ill, they come out, and guess where they end up? Back in. At $22,500 a year. Now, if I don't provide some kind of health care for those who are the working poor where do we see them? Where do we see them? Emergency rooms. Are they healthier or sicker?"

"Sicker," the audience called back.

"Thank you," Kasich said. "So we are now seeing emergency room visits decline."

Here's the audio of Kasich's comment on Medicaid:

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And here's the full audio of Kasich's appearance at the GOP lunch:

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“I think there is a fair question when you used the bulk of your time on a private email server to have some neutral observer … some individual judge that everyone trusts or something … make a determination [as] to what is and what is not appropriately subject to public scrutiny.”

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A Democratic congressman from Massachusetts said Tuesday that Hillary Clinton's emails should be sorted through by a "neutral observer," possibly a judge, to determine which are matters of public record and which are private.

Mike Capuano, speaking with local radio Tuesday morning, said he had "concerns" about Clinton's exclusive use of a personal email address during her tenure as the former Secretary of State.

"I have some concerns," said Capuano, adding he didn't know all the details.

"We are talking about national issues and I think there is a fair question when you used the bulk of your time on a private email server to have some neutral observer -- not the U.S. Congress that's clearly going after a political witch hunt here -- but I don't know some individual judge that everyone trusts or something go through them and make a determination [as] to what is and what is not appropriately subject to public scrutiny," Capuano said.

Clinton turned over 55,000 pages of emails to the State Department in December of 2014 at the department's request. Clinton's office decided which emails were official records and which were personal in nature and turned over the official ones for preservation. Clinton's personal server was then wiped clean, her lawyer recently told the Benghazi Committee.

"I'm not interested in her personal life or the life between her and her husband, but that was her choice," added Capuano, saying his public email was all in one place.

"I use my campaign email for campaign related purposes. First of all the law requires it, and second of all it's appropriate. I know that my email, I actually don't know how public it is but I assume it is and therefore my email is used for me and my staff and that's really about it. As I have two offices obviously and I have to keep in communication with everybody. And that's really about it. At some point if somebody needed to see what I was doing officially for some sort of legal requirement, it's all in one place."

The super awkward moment happened during the Truth and Reconciliation report hearing.

On Tuesday, Justice Murray Sinclair unveiled his long-awaited Truth and Reconciliation Report into residential schools.

The report contains 94 recommendations. Some could be easily done, others will be hugely controversial.

Reuters

Sinclair presented the report to a room full of media, politicians, and guests.

When Sinclair got to recommendation 41 — an inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women that advocates and even the United Nations have been calling for for years — the crowd erupted into a standing ovation.

CBC

Except for Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt, who refused to stand from his seat in the first row.

Valcourt was caught in an awkward situation. His boss has said an inquiry is not a priority and Valcourt has dismissed an inquiry as just another study that would be used as an excuse to not take action.

CBC

His seatmate, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, was not impressed.

~Mulcair glare~

CBC

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“I think inevitability is not her friend. I think it’s a real burden.”

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Former Obama strategist David Axelrod says Hillary Clinton's "sporadic" campaign appearances are hurting her candidacy. Axelrod added that Clinton will have a problem unless she gets into the "routine of campaigning."

"I thinks she's being hurt right now by her sporadic appearances, you want to be the regular routine of campaigning and it's important that she gets there and gets there quickly," Axelrod told ABC Wisconsin-affiliate WISN Tuesday. "If she does, I think all of this will be forgotten. I think if she continues in this fashion it will be a problem."

Axelrod was in Milwaukee to speak about his new book at a Marquette University Law School forum.

Speaking the event, he said it was likely she would be the nominee, although "inevitability" is a burden for her in 2016.

"The high likelihood is that Hillary will be the nominee but having said that I think inevitability is not her friend," Axelrod told a crowd at the school. "I think it's a real burden."

Axelrod said he saw "two Hillary Clintons" during the 2008 race: one that was cautious and one that was "a very effective candidate."

"I saw two Hillary Clintons in 2007, 2008. In 2007 she was kind of constrained in this straight jacket of inevitability and she carried that inevitability around like a porcelain vase and she was very cautious, unadventuresome, unrevealing," Axelrod said.

"And then she lost the Iowa Caucuses and she became a different candidate. She threw all that caution away. She was much more revealing of herself, much more connecting with other people, much more of an advocate than she had been. In my view, a very effective candidate. It was just too late."

Axelrod questioned if Clinton was once again following the "temptation to be cautious."

"The question she'll have to answer is which candidate is she going to be in 2016 because once again there's this veil of inevitability and there's a temptation to be cautious," he said.

"You have to take some risks along the way," added Axelrod. "I think that's the challenge for her if she's gonna go all the way but I think she certainly has a chance to do that."

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A “White Men’s Club,” the report calls HRC. HRC’s top officials acknowledged the report’s findings, pointing to more than 20 steps being taken to address the issues.

The Human Rights Campaign participated in a rally organized by the Unite for Marriage Coalition outside the Supreme Court to demonstrate support for marriage equality on Tuesday, April 28, 2015 in Washington.

Kevin Wolf / AP Images for Human Rights Campaign

WASHINGTON — Staff at the Human Rights Campaign last fall described the working environment at the nation's largest LGBT rights group as "judgmental," "exclusionary," "sexist," and "homogenous," according to a sharply critical report that was commissioned by HRC and obtained by BuzzFeed News.

Based on a series of focus groups and surveys with the staff, conducted by outside consultants, the report detailed systemic problems within HRC — ranging from treatment of employees, including those who are transgender, to concerns about human resources and organizational commitment to diversity and inclusion.

HRC acknowledged the report on Tuesday, and provided BuzzFeed News with a four-page response on Wednesday. HRC spokesman Fred Sainz told BuzzFeed News that the group commissioned the report "as part of its own self-reflection and is a concrete sign that HRC is committed to doing better both by our employees and the communities we serve."

Three elements of the report, which was conducted by The Pipeline Project, were provided to BuzzFeed from an anonymous source: a snapshot of the findings, a summary of the findings, and a detailed report from the group.

"Leadership culture is experienced as homogenous — gay, white, male," the report stated. "Exclusion was broad-based and hit all identity groups within HRC. A judgmental working environment, particularly concerning women and feminine-identified individuals, was highlighted in survey responses."

The Pipeline Project provided the reports to HRC leadership early this year. The key findings of the report are yet to be shared with staff, as was promised by the organization.

Chad Griffin, HRC's president, provided BuzzFeed News with a statement about the report, saying, "Like many organizations and companies throughout our country, HRC has embarked on a thoughtful and comprehensive diversity and inclusion effort with the goals of better representing the communities we serve — and hiring, nurturing and retaining a workforce that not only looks like America but feels respected and appreciated for the hard work they do every day."

HRC provided BuzzFeed News with a list of 18 steps it says it already has taken to improve the working environment at the organization since it received the Pipeline Report and 3 additional steps that are "in the works."

"As we fully anticipated, the report flagged problem areas that the organization has already begun to tackle aggressively," Griffin said in his statement. "We'll continue to address them, one by one, as any serious organization recognizing these challenges would."

The report informed HRC leadership that staff are critical of an "exclusionary environment" at the advocacy group — where 1 in 5 staff believe "diversity and inclusion" is not a necessary part of the group's work and values.

To that end, the report stated, "There is a general perception that current diversity efforts are not working and that there's a lack of diversity understanding broadly." A participant in a focus group noted, "A lot of folks are personally invested in diversity inclusion but their voices have been smothered or pushed away."

At the same time, the report also noted that employees were eager to participate in the Pipeline Project's process because they believe in the organization's aims and wanted to help it succeed. "There is a high level of commitment among HRC's staff to the point that almost three-quarters would recommend the organization to a friend or colleague as a good place to work," one portion summarizing the findings states.

Human Right Campaign President Chad Griffin speaks at the HRC Spring Equality Convention on Friday, March 6, 2015 in Washington.

Larry French / AP Images for Human Rights Campaign

Cuc Vu, who served as the chief diversity officer at HRC from 2007 through the beginning of 2014, left the organization before the start of the Pipeline Project's review. Vu, who now works as the acting director of the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs in Seattle, did not respond to a request to talk with BuzzFeed News about HRC or this report.

Clarence Patton, the lead consultant on the project from the Pipeline Project, did not respond to request for comment on Tuesday, but HRC provided a statement from him in its response on Wednesday.

"It's important to put the results of this report in context with other nonprofit and for-profit organizations. HRC is not at the top of the class but it's just as important to add that there are and have been organizations in far worse shape," Patton said in the statement. "For an organization of its size, complexity and programmatic diversity, none of the results surprised the Pipeline team. Moreover, we felt that all of our findings were addressable issues."

Among those issues highlighted repeatedly in the more than 30 pages of Pipeline Project report documents obtained by BuzzFeed News was what one subsection of the reported called a "White Men's Club" environment at HRC.

"One of the most frequent concerns that rose was the sense of an organizational culture rooted in a white, masculine orientation which is judgmental of all those who don't fit that mold," the report states in summarizing its survey findings. "Disparate treatment toward women and those with 'soft skills' was frequently cited by staff — both men and women — and there is a sense that if you operate outside of that orientation, you will not be successful at HRC."

That perception is also borne out in the experience of minority employees, according to the report, summarizing survey responses at one point as follows: "More than half of multiracial and Latino people and 83% of genderqueer people feel they are not treated equally based on their identity."

From the focus groups, the report details criticism from younger staff and female staff about their contributions not being valued. In a listing of comments made, one staffer said, "Younger staff in particular are exploited and not rewarded financially." Another said, "Straight women and lesbians get sexist treatment from gay men at HRC."

The report notes, "Seven out of 31 men who have been promoted have been on staff less than two years (some promoted two times). No women under two years have been promoted."

In addressing the report, HRC told BuzzFeed News that the group has created employee resource groups for transgender and gender-expansive employees, people of color, women, bisexual employees, and remote employees. The group noted that each resource group "has an executive staff member who is a sponsor."

Additionally, HRC has added "recruiting efforts to diverse audiences undertaken to reach prospective applicants" and updated job postings "to affirmatively communicate that diverse candidates are encouraged to apply."

The environment for transgender staff was highlighted in the Pipeline Project report as a particularly problematic area. In the summary of findings, the consultants broke out the focus group discussions about the experience of trans staff at HRC "[d]ue to the depths of concerns." Among those issues were findings that "[t]rans* people don't feel safe to come out at HRC," noting that some staff "work for years at HRC before coming out as trans."

The report also notes that "[t]rans* people are frequently misgendered with the wrong pronouns, after repeated corrections."

HRC noted that among the changes implemented since receiving the report are several aimed at improving the climate for transgender or genderqueer staff. The group states that it has updated the new staff orientation process, announcements for new staff, job descriptions, and dress code to reflect a commitment to respecting employees' use of pronouns and using gender-neutral language where appropriate. HRC says it also surveyed employees about their pronoun use, applying those results to "organizational communications."

The survey also showed a significant problem in the human resources department. Referencing a discussion raised throughout the documents, the consultants bluntly state, "No one trusts HR."

The surveys showed that only one of 12 trans or genderqueer staffers agreed that "appropriate policies/procedures are in place or that HR has proper resources," and the Pipeline Project also noted of HR, "They have poorly handled gender pronouns, name changes, email changes during transition."

The concerns about human resources and training extended beyond trans employees to the full staff.

"More than half of staff believe HR is under-resourced when it comes to" diversity and inclusion, the report notes. Training from HR also was highlighted as being insufficient. In one particularly glaring finding, the report notes that "67% of supervisors don't think HR provides adequate training for managers."

According to HRC, since receiving the report, the group has restructured the Human Resources Department, including "a new staff and a heightened focus on diversity competencies."

Regarding transgender issues specifically, the group says it has "updated the staff new-hire form to include gender identity and expression; added categories to allow staff to self-identify; [and] implemented data collection language based on Williams Institute recommendations for sexual orientation, gender identity and expression." It also says it has implemented a new policy for transitioning employees.

Beyond the specific issues, the report also highlighted a concern within the organization that raising concerns — such as those highlighted throughout the report — will result in retaliation. In summarizing the survey findings, the report states, "There is a general sense of feeling excluded from decision-making and a distrust or fear that if one brings up concerns, their sphere of influence becomes limited."

To that end, one person commented in a focus group that people feel that "®aising concerns is not your job and focus on your tasks. Concerns are to be tasked by people who are more experienced, less radical, more conservative, more mainstream."

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The former governor of Rhode Island announced Wednesday that he will challenge Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

Jessica Rinaldi / Reuters

Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee formally entered the race for president Wednesday, joining Martin O'Malley and Bernie Sanders as a challenger to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

"I enjoy challenges and certainly we have many facing America. Today I am formally entering the race for the Democratic nomination for president," Chafee said at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia.

A former Republican senator, Chafee ran for governor as an independent before eventually joining the Democratic Party.

In the lead up to his formal announcement, Chafee has emphasized that he was the only Republican senator who voted against authorizing military action in Iraq. Chafee told The Washington Post last month that he thought Clinton's vote to authorize military action in Iraq was disqualifying.

"I don't think anybody should be president of the United States that made that mistake," Chafee said. "It's a huge mistake and we live with broad, broad ramifications today — of instability not only in the Middle East but far beyond and the loss of American credibility. There were no weapons of mass destruction."

Chafee barely registers in public opinion polls and has yet to launch any organized effort to raise money.

“It’s why I’m running for president, it’s not to entertain the mass with comments on the culture news of the day. So I’ll continue to focus on the things that I think people are far more plugged into.”

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Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on Wednesday said that only the media cares about his comments uncovered Tuesday in which he said that he wished he could have pretended to be transgender in high school "when it came time to take showers in PE."

"Nobody ever asks me about it except the media, they're the only ones who seem to be stirred up about it," Huckabee said.

To illustrate his point, Huckabee told an anecdote about a man who lost his job in the economic downturn.

"So what people talk to me about is not some speech I made four months ago. And it's not some cultural issue," he said.

"People talk to me about the loss of their job. They talk to me about the threats to this country and that's what I'm focused. It's why I'm running for president, it's not to entertain the mass with comments on the culture news of the day. So I'll continue to focus on the things that I think people are far more plugged into."

BuzzFeed News has found at least two other times Huckabee has joked about teenage boys pretending to be transgender to go shower with the girls, on his Fox News television show and during the Family Research Council's 2013 Value Voters Summit.

Both times Huckabee made the comments, he was reacting to the 2013 California School Success and Opportunity Act which allows transgender public school students in the state to use school facilities and participate in activities based on their gender identity.

"So, Jerry Brown, the governor of California, this week signed a bill — by the same legislature that passed a bill that said if six-year-olds, who are biologically boys think that they are really girls, that they should be able to go to the girls restroom," Huckabee said in the 2013 Value Voters Summit speech.

"And if they're 16 and they really — maybe you're biologically all male but they identify as female, they should be able to go to the locker room with, shower with, and play on the sports teams of the girls. And to those of us who believe that there is a difference between male and female, we would say 'we have been told you're on your own.'"

"And by the way, it is a good thing that that didn't come up when I was in high school cause I'm pretty sure that every boy in my high school would have suddenly felt like that he was just a little more comfortable showering with the girls no matter how uncomfortable the girls might have been with it. Is that not the craziest think you've ever heard?"

Huckabee made similar comments on his Fox News show in August of that year, saying he wondered how many of his high school classmates would have "awakened" at the "revelation" they could shower with girls by being transgender.

"If the child says 'you know what, today I really' — a boy walks in and says — 'I am feeling my girl's side', he gets to go shower with the girls when he's 14," Huckabee said.

"I'm just thinking of all the 14-year-old boys I went to school with, and how many of them would have awakened with that revelation."

Here's the video of him making the joke on his Fox News show:

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Here's the video of Huckabee at the 2013 Value Voters Summit:

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“I don’t know, it will be up to them. Ask them, I don’t know.”

Matt Sullivan / Getty Images

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee says it's up to Duggar family whether they campaign with him or not.

"I don't know, it will be up to them. Ask them I don't know," Huckabee said addressing the media in Little Rock, Arkansas on Tuesday before a fundraiser.

Huckabee prominently defended reality star and former executive director of the Family Research Council Action Josh Duggar after allegations of past sex abuse emerged. The Duggar family has long campaigned for and supported Huckabee.

"Josh's actions when he was an underage teen are as he described them himself, 'inexcusable,' but that doesn't mean 'unforgivable,'" Huckabee said in a Facebook post.

Here's the vine of Huckabee's comments, caught on a local news live stream:

vine.co

The former Florida governor tweeted a picture early Thursday saying “COMING 6.15.15,” this comes roughly six months after he said he was considering a presidential run.

It's almost official, another Bush will be making a run for the White House. Jeb, who announced about six months ago that he was exploring a presidential run, will make his official announcement in less than two weeks.

Alex Wong / Getty Images

The former Florida governor, who is also the son of former president George H.W. Bush and younger brother to former president George W. Bush, will make the announcement on June 15, 2015, according to a tweet he sent out Thursday morning.

According to Bush's website jebannouncement.com, the big reveal will happen at 1 p.m. at Miami Dade College Kendall Campus.

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“Are topless photos of women an offensive display of sexism, or an empowering display against sexism? I have a feeling most men don’t care much either way.”

Matt Sullivan / Getty Images

The Huckabee Report

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said earlier this year that it's getting harder to keep up with feminists who, on one hand, call a British tabloid regularly featuring photos of topless models "sexist," and on the other hand fill "the internet with topless photos of themselves" to protest the unequal treatment of men's and women's chests under public nudity laws.

"It's getting harder to keep up with what you're supposed to believe to be a good feminist," Huckabee told listeners of his radio bulletin, The Huckabee Report, in January.

Huckabee explained that earlier that week, the British tabloid newspaper The Sun had announced that its print edition would no longer feature "'Page Three Girls,' the young models who appeared topless on page three."

The change came "in response to a long campaign by feminists," Huckabee informed his audience, "who called the photos of bare-breasted women sexist, offensive, and outdated, and said that doing away with them was a huge step for challenging media sexism."

Huckabee then turned his attention to what he called "one of the other great feminist causes of the day," the "Free the Nipple" campaign -- or, as he described it, "the crusade to allow women to walk around in public shirtless, the way some men do."

"Celebrities like Chelsea Handler and Miley Cyrus have joined in," Huckabee reported, "and now they're filling the internet with topless photos of themselves, all in the name of fighting sexism and inequality."

"So, are topless photos of women an offensive display of sexism, or an empowering blow against sexism?" asked Huckabee. "I have a feeling most men don't care much either way."

Huckabee concluded by suggesting that the debate over public nudity could be easily resolved.

"Just tell the men to put on a darn shirt when they go out in public."

Missouri now has enough drugs for 16 lethal injections. But how? The drugs often used in executions generally have a short expiration date.

The death chamber at the Missouri Correctional Center on April 12, 2005.

James A. Finley / AP

While other death penalty states have struggled to get their hands on execution drugs, the state of Missouri has quietly stockpiled a substantial amount.

It raises the question: How is Missouri able to do this when no other state seems to have a steady source of the drugs? The state isn't saying, at least not anymore.

The state will also no longer say whether officials procure execution drugs from a compounding pharmacy, where pharmacists mix the drugs most often used in executions.

"Missouri uses pentobarbital as the lethal chemical in its execution process, but does not admit nor deny the chemical now used is compounded as opposed to manufactured," Attorney General Chris Koster's Office wrote in an April court filing.

The existence of the large supply itself suggests that something significant has changed with the kind of drug Missouri is using.

Compounded drugs can only last for a short period of time. The United States Pharmacopeia strongly recommends against keeping a compounded drug like pentobarbital for longer than 45 days — and that the drug can only last that long if it's frozen. Manufactured drugs, which are made by pharmaceutical companies, on the other hand, can last for months or years.

State officials changed drug suppliers in February 2014, after their previous supplier, the Apothecary Shoppe, was sued for, among other things, selling execution drugs when it wasn't licensed to do so in Missouri.

Until February 2014, Missouri's drug stockpile hovered around zero, presumably because the compounded drugs expired so quickly. Since changing drug suppliers, however, the state's drug supply has exploded, according to records obtained by BuzzFeed News.

Dennis Huynh / BuzzFeed News

Missouri now has enough drugs for 16 executions.

With FDA-approved suppliers either discontinuing the manufacture of pentobarbital or enacting stringent guidelines to prevent states from getting ahold of their drugs, it led some capital attorneys to believe the state is resorting to veterinary pentobarbital — something that would be much easier to find, but illegal to use on humans.

When two attorneys, Cheryl Pilate and Lindsay Runnels, approached the Department of Corrections, officials refused to say whether the drug is veterinary.

"The response has been very evasive," Pilate said. "We made several requests about the use of veterinary drugs, and instead of getting the response of "Of course we would never use a veterinary drugs," they [were] refusing to say."

When BuzzFeed News asked the state's corrections department whether the state is using veterinary drugs in executions, spokesperson David Owen said, "No."

Owen would not answer any questions about how the state could be holding onto drugs for so long, given the short shelf life of compounded drugs.

Gov. Jay Nixon's Office would not answer questions, either, and a spokesperson with Attorney General Chris Koster's office declined to comment.

"It's the ease with which they're getting it," Pilate said. "Other states are having serious problems getting ahold of their drugs. Why not Missouri?"

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Three Democratic candidates each traveled to Washington this week to court the endorsement of the American Federation of Teachers — and after taking part in the hour-long meetings, the thing that stood out most to Randi Weingarten, the union, president, was this: Hillary Clinton knew what she was doing.

The other two, Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders, maybe less so.

The AFT meetings, which took place over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday, may offer Clinton the possibility of an early, influential endorsement from the major teachers union that endorsed her in the 2008 presidential race. Weingarten herself is close to and has supported Clinton for years. She sits on the board of Priorities USA Action, the super PAC raising millions to support her candidacy.

On matters of education policy, according to Weingarten, Clinton engaged the group with noticeably more depth and granular detail than her competitors. It was, she said, the most striking difference between the three candidates, particularly on the set of issues that have created fissures inside the Democratic Party, including testing, teacher evaluations in tenure decisions, and Common Core.

“Both in terms of the presentation as well as the questions, Secretary Clinton was clearly understood and spoke in great depth,” said Weingarten. “The members of the board did not ask Sen. Sanders or Gov. O’Malley as many questions about public education. I don’t frankly…” Weingarten paused. “I really don’t… Let me just observe that it was interesting. I don’t really want to draw a conclusion about it.”

Weingarten said that all three candidates — Clinton; Sanders, the U.S. senator from Vermont; and O’Malley, the former Maryland governor of Maryland — voiced strong support for public school teachers. But Clinton “talked so granularly about the issues that people felt a freedom to ask follow-up questions,” she said.

The three meetings, hosted at AFT’s headquarters, were each attended by about 150 union members, around one third of whom are on the group’s executive council. Each of the candidates gave brief introductory remarks before answering questions from the audience. The conversation with Clinton, O’Malley, and Sanders touched on five key areas, said Weingarten: the “imbalance in the economy,” public education, health care, retirement security, and the democracy.

The AFT effort to engage the candidates marked the first formal endorsement meeting of its kind by a union or interest group in the 2016 Democratic primary.

The meetings were not open to the media. But in an interview on Wednesday evening, Weingarten described AFT’s endorsement process and outlined in broad strokes each candidate’s message. She declined to elaborate on any shades of difference in policy or position between Clinton, O’Malley, and Sanders.

Prior to the meetings, the candidates each completed a policy-focused questionnaire, which AFT leadership began preparing in collaboration with its members in February. The attendees on Tuesday and Wednesday formulated their questions for the three Democrats — which were not prescreened — having reviewed their responses to the questionnaire. AFT plans to use the documents, as well as taped video from the three meetings this week, during the election.

AFT also invited Republican candidates to participate in the same process. None acknowledged receipt of the questionnaire, according to Weingarten.

Lincoln Chafee, the former Republican and Independent from Rhode Island who announced his presidential campaign on Wednesday as a Democrat, declined to participate, telling AFT officials his record could speak for itself, Weingarten said.

Asked about her past support for Clinton in relation to AFT’s endorsement, Weingarten said it wouldn’t be an issue, noting that some of her colleagues had relationships with O’Malley and Sanders: “I’m one person on the board.”

Since she launched her campaign in April, Clinton has not discussed the finer points of her positions on a number of policies important to teachers unions. (She is expected to outline a more detailed agenda following her formal campaign launch speech on June 13 on New York’s Roosevelt Island.)

The AFT backed Clinton over Barack Obama in October 2007. The largest teachers union, National Education Association, did not endorse a candidate in the 2008 Democratic primary, though the union did back Obama's re-election.

Eight years later, however, Clinton may face more pressure from a share of the Democratic Party, and donor community, that has fought unions for more charter schools, voucher programs, and measures that test teachers and link tenure to achievement.

Wealthy Democrats who have made education their top priority have already said that Clinton, despite her lead in early polling, should make her beliefs known sooner rather than later. Ann O’Leary, the campaign’s top policy adviser, told the New York Times earlier this year that Clinton would be engaging with leaders on both sides of the debate more than Obama administration has: “both the teachers union and the reformers will really feel like they have her ear in a way they haven’t.”

But Weingarten said she wasn’t worried. The union leader was head of the New York-based United Federation of Teachers when she first backed Clinton, then the state’s junior senator. Weingarten dismissed the donors, saying Clinton “follows the evidence, not ideology — that’s what she told our members.”

Asked to detail Clinton’s stance on the issues discussed, Weingarten said the candidate “addressed issues of testing, of standards, and she did it in a very direct way. She basically said, which was the bottom line over and over again, you cannot help students, virtually all students, if teachers aren’t our partners.”

Weingarten said Clinton signaled a need for “a change in that direction.”

But she added that, when it comes to AFT’s endorsement, the union will take into account characteristics such as “tenacity,” “openness,” and “integrity.”

“As people are on the campaign trail, they’ll be more and more specific about policies,” Weingarten said. “The different was, Secretary Clinton spoke in a very extensive way about policies and practices that would help more and more children be ready for life and career and college — and that there was a depth there in terms of the conversation that she had. That was the big difference.”

The topic of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, another issue dividing the Democratic Party, also came up in each of the three meetings. Weingarten said that Clinton’s comments to the AFT members were consistent with her public remarks on the issue: that she would support a trade deal that protects U.S. workers and wages, and strengthens national security, but would not weigh in on this trade deal until the president finished the negotiations that are still shaping its makeup.

Brian Snyder / Reuters

O’Malley and Sanders have both stated that they oppose the trade deal.

The AFT did not expand on the details of the candidates’ introductory remarks. But the union did share small excerpts — about two paragraphs each — from the speeches to the group by Clinton, O’Malley and Sanders.

In hers, Clinton told the executive council that the election would be a “pivotal turning point” — and that education should be restored “at the top of our agenda.”

“The most important and impactful thing we can do for our public schools is to recruit, support and retain the highest quality educators,” Clinton said. “It is just dead wrong to make teachers the scapegoats for all of society’s problems. Where I come from, teachers are the solution. And I strongly believe that unions are part of the solution, too.”

Clinton called for a “stronger, fairer, more inclusive America,” in which every child has access to child care and pre-Kindergarten and every public school official is treated with “the respect and dignity that comes with the teaching profession.”

O’Malley, who made his campaign official last weekend, told the group that he worked frequently as governor of Maryland in partnership with union leaders.

“I don’t know how these other guys think,” he said. “How do you improve public education if you vilify and turn into enemies the teachers that are responsible for our children?”

With the campaign slogan, “New Leadership,” O’Malley and some of his advisers, two of whom recently launched a super PAC called “Generation Forward,” have targeted younger voters as a possible support base. In his meeting with AFT, O’Malley identified “access to higher education for the next generation of Americans” as a “building block of this American dream that we share.”

Sanders, in his remarks at AFT, repeated his call for a “political revolution.” The senator said he envisioned a vast restructuring of the country’s fiscal priorities — with no cuts to education. “We are the wealthiest nation in the history of the world. Today. Why in God’s name is there any school in America talking about cutting back?” Sanders asked, citing a favorite statistic: that a few years ago, 25 of the nation’s hedge fund managers made as much as 435,000 public school teachers.

It’s not clear when the union will make its endorsement. Weingarten said that AFT will continue to engage its members “in the coming days, weeks, and months,” but indicated that the timeline will be somewhat similar to 2008.

Supporting coverage of all LGBT people under Title VII “would be one of the most significant actions you could take during your tenure as Attorney General to advance the equal treatment of LGBT Americans,” the ACLU writes to Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch

Mark Wilson / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — The American Civil Liberties Union is asking the Justice Department to take the position that anti-gay discrimination violates the sex discrimination ban in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In a letter sent Thursday to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the ACLU asked the Justice Department to take that position — that Title VII's sex discrimination ban includes anti-gay and all sexual orientation-based discrimination — in litigation going forward.

In recent years, legislative efforts to pass sexual-orientation and gender identity-specific nondiscrimination laws through Congress have stalled. In November 2013, the Senate passed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, longstanding legislation to ban employment discrimination against LGBT people, but the House never took up the measure.

The ACLU's request on Thursday follows a similar move taken by the Justice Department in December 2014, when then-Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the department would begin supporting transgender discrimination claims in litigation as violating Title VII. Since then, the Justice Department has weighed in to support a private lawsuit against Saks and filed a case against Oklahoma's university system, both based on allegations that anti-trans discrimination violated Title VII.

Two years before the Justice Department's decision to support trans discrimination claims, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission held that Title VII banned anti-trans and other gender identity-based discrimination for federal employees' challenges and in the EEOC's own practices, including its role investigating and addressing private employment discrimination claims.

The inclusion of sexual orientation-based discrimination under Title VII has lagged because, as the ACLU's Joshua Block previously told BuzzFeed News, many of the earlier cases on the issue were considered while old laws like the Supreme Court's 1986 decision that upheld sodomy laws against gay people were still on the books.

In the time since the Supreme Court reversed that decision and struck down sodomy laws in 2003, federal courts and the EEOC have held that sexual orientation discrimination — to the extent that it is based in sex-stereotyping — can violate Title VII. No federal appeals courts or the Supreme Court, however, have held that all sexual orientation discrimination is per se — or, automatically — sex discrimination.

Lower federal courts and the EEOC have begun expanding their views on the issue in recent years, leading to a February EEOC field memo previously obtained by BuzzFeed News detailing its current view on the issue. In the memo, the independent agency stated its position that "intentional discrimination based on an individual's sexual orientation can be proved to be grounded in sex-based norms [because they] can include the expectation that men should be sexually attracted to women and that women should be sexually attracted to men."

While not, technically, a statement that all sexual-orientation discrimination is sex discrimination, the EEOC view leaves few areas that would not be covered.

Now, though, the ACLU is asking the Justice Department to take the lead and announce definitively that it believes Title VII's sex discrimination ban "extends to claims of discrimination based on an individual's sexual orientation because it constitutes sex stereotyping and because it is sex discrimination per se."

In the letter to Lynch, the group tells her this would be "would be one of the most significant actions you could take during your tenure as Attorney General to advance the equal treatment of LGBT Americans."

Read the ACLU's letter:

“As forces began chipping away at America’s public sense of morality, people became increasingly bold about their lifestyles. Gays proudly came out of the closet.”

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, along with author John Perry, wrote in the 2007 book, Character Makes a Difference: Where I'm From, Where I've Been, and What I Believe, that 1968 marked the shift in our society towards "the age of the birth control pill, free love, gay sex, the drug culture, and reckless disregard for standards."

Huckabee added that "as forces began chipping away at America's public sense of morality, people became increasingly bold about their lifestyles," writing that "gays proudly came out of the closet."

The book was an auto-biographical account of Huckabee's ascendance to the Arkansas governor's office after Gov. Jim Guy Tucker resigned in the aftermath of the Whitewater investigation.

"I became a teenager in 1968, a year I have always considered a watershed date in American history," wrote Huckabee in his book. "That year marked the death of innocence: the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., the Chicago riots, and the horror of Vietnam. The world didn't change completely in a single year, but in 1968 the shift in our society became too apparent to miss."

"People were angry," he continues. "Student protests and the hippie movement were at fever pitch. The Black Panthers came into their own. There was a total loss, not just of innocence, but of a sense of community and wholesomeness. It really did mark a turning point. From that year onward, we have lived in the age of the birth control pill, free love, gay sex, the drug culture, and reckless disregard for standards."

Later in the chapter, called "Candidate in the Mirror," Huckabee cites gays proudly coming out of the closet as a sign of decline in America's moral culture.

"As forces began chipping away at America's public sense of morality, people became increasingly bold about their lifestyles," wrote Huckabee.

"Gays proudly came out of the closet. Pushers and users openly discussed drugs and drug addiction. Movie stars all but bragged on television about their affairs and their bouts with alcohol. Divorce lost any kind of stigma as did teen pregnancy."

Huckabee added the media didn't set the culture but only reflected it.

"And what role does the media play in this downward spiral," Huckabee wrote.

"I believe the media only reflects culture; it doesn't create it. That is one place where I differ from many of my evangelical brothers. The media isn 't a light, but a mirror. People buy what they see in themselves."

Here's the full passage:

I became a teenager in 1968, a year I have always considered a watershed date in American history. That year marked the death of innocence: the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., the Chicago riots, and the horror of Vietnam. The world didn't change completely in a single year, but in 1968 the shift in our society became too apparent to miss. People were angry. Student protests and the hippie movement were at fever pitch. The Black Panthers came into their own. There was a total loss, not just of innocence, but of a sense of community and wholesomeness. It really did mark a turning point. From that year onward, we have lived in the age of the birth control pill, free love, gay sex, the drug culture, and reckless disregard for standards. The "turn on, tune in, drop out" movement gave personal debauchery a new license. People felt free to do whatever they wanted. Your norm and my norm became the cultural norm. No longer did we live by the standards of God ; it became, "You define your standard, I'll define mine, and everybody will be happy. Nobody can tell me to pray; nobody can tell me to read a Bible; nobody can tell me what is right and wrong. I have to make those decisions for myself. " It was the beginning of the "Me Generation," which mushroomed in the seventies. By the time we got to Watergate, morality had become a joke.

Not long ago, no reporter would consider running an exposé on a president's personal life. Indiscretion was considered horrendous. You just didn't talk about those things in public. Respect for the office and a sense of public decorum prevented it. In the 1920s, President Warren G. Harding had numerous mistresses, one of whom bore him a child —but it never hit the front-page news. We thought then that our presidents were better than that. When Franklin Roosevelt died, he was on vacation with a woman other than his wife —a woman he had promised he would not see again. Yet the scandal mill produced no grist. During the sixties, it would have been unthinkable for anyone to publish news of President Kennedy 's intimate White House escapades or to run a photo of Jackie— a heavy smoker— with a Marlboro hanging from her lip. Both public figures and the media were discreet, even about indiscretions. As forces began chipping away at America's public sense of morality, people became increasingly bold about their lifestyles. Gays proudly came out of the closet. Pushers and users openly discussed drugs and drug addiction. Movie stars all but bragged on television about their affairs and their bouts with alcohol. Divorce lost any kind of stigma as did teen pregnancy. And what role does the media play in this downward spiral? I believe the media only reflects culture; it doesn't create it. That is one place where I differ from many of my evangelical brothers. The media isn 't a light, but a mirror. People buy what they see in themselves. That helps explain why in 1992 we elected Bill Clinton, not George Bush, as president.

Taking shots at Republican presidential candidates, Clinton sought to position herself as a champion for minority voters and proposed sweeping changes to voting rights across the country.

Mark Lennihan / AP

HOUSTON — Saying there is a sweeping effort underway across the country to disenfranchise people of color from voting, Hillary Clinton called for universal, automatic voter registration for every citizen when they turn 18, at a speech at Texas Southern University in Houston, one of the largest historically black colleges in the nation.

"I think this would have a profound impact on our elections and our democracy," she said.

People would be able to opt out of being automatically registered under the proposal, Clinton said. She also called for the adoption of an early voting standard of at least 20 days before an election across the country, along with increased availability to online voter registration and reduced waiting times on election day.

She spoke to the largely black crowd after receiving the Barbara Jordan Public-Private Leadership Award and recalled coming to the area after Katrina with her husband "and a young senator from Illinois by the name of Barack Obama," she said to cheers.

But Clinton also sought to connect the life of Barbara Jordan, who was the first woman and first African American woman ever elected to represent Texas in the House of Representatives, and her fight for the Voting Rights Act, to the current climate, where she said the law has had its "heart ripped out."

And she called out former Texas governor Rick Perry, as well as Scott Walker, Chris Christie and Jeb Bush — all for their actions on voting rights.

Clinton pointed to a law passed in Oregon in March that registers everyone who visits the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to vote as a model for the country to look towards.

Matt Barreto, a political scientist and principal at polling firm Latino Decisions, said Oregon has come the closest to creating opt-out voting instead of the traditional opt-in structure.

Clinton's support for these policies are a win-win in Democratic politics — likely to be seen positively by Democratic voters, while also setting herself up as a champion for minority voters.

The RNC called her remarks "misleading and divisive."

"In reality, the vast majority of Americans – including minority voters – support commonsense measures to prevent voter fraud. Clinton's shameless attacks ignore the fact her Democrat-led home state of New York does not allow early voting while dozens of Republican-led states do," said Orlando Watson, RNC communications director for black media.

The New York Times reported that initial salvos from Democrats have begun with lawsuits in Ohio, Wisconsin and North Carolina as well as efforts to rollback voter ID requirements, time restrictions on early voting that could hamper voting the weekend before the election along with other rules.

Barreto said there is another positive for Clinton, allowing this conversation to begin in states that are friendly to her, since these rules are controlled by the states.

"You're not forcing anyone to vote but you're taking those barriers down," he said. "It gets her back into that discussion about fairness and equality and puts Republicans on the defensive about if they want everyone voting."

When the DMV law passed in Oregon, it passed with no Republican support.

"Government should nudge people to do the right thing but not force people," Rep. Knute Buehler said at the time, the Washington Post, reported.

Barreto said it will be interesting to see if Republicans take the bait, noting that in 2012 the push for voter ID laws by the GOP put groups like the NAACP and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) on notice about those efforts.

"It's a good side to be on," Barreto said of Clinton.