Under Obama, bad economic news always came as a surprise.  With Trump in the White House, good economic news is always unexpected.

Surprisingly Weak Jobs Report Puzzles Economists.  It came as a shock: U.S. employers added just 74,000 jobs in December, far fewer than anyone expected.

Barbara Walters Has No Political Questions for Obamas; Asks About Family Dog Bo.  ABC's Barbara Walters' "interview" with the Obamas on Thursday's [12/27/2012] Nightline ran much more like a celebrity infomercial. [...] With the fiscal cliff looming just weeks after the interview originally took place, Walters had no questions on any matter of political significance.

Obama to give Sunday morning interview to ABC's 'This Week'.  The president has customarily avoided the Sunday show circuit.  When he appeared late last year on "Meet the Press" during his reelection campaign, it was the first time in more than three years he had appeared on one of the shows.  In 2009, the president sat for a series of Sunday show interview [sic] to build support for his health care reform plan.

The Editor says...
Mr. Obama only goes to TV interviews where he is sure to be asked easy questions.  That generally means small-market stations, sports networks, and ABC.

Liberals Still Think Obama Was the 'Best President Ever,' Here Are 14 Reasons Why That's Ridiculous.  [#9] He literally spied on the media.  The media loved Obama, but Obama didn't love them back.  In fact, Obama abused the Espionage Act to target reporters and their sources.  Less than six months into Obama's second term we learned that his Justice Department secretly obtained two months of phone records of AP reporters and editors.  One consequence of this Obama administration spying was that longtime sources stopped talking to the Associated Press and other news organizations.  Obama's Justice Department also secretly obtained then-Fox News reporter James Rosen's phone records, tracked his movements, and read his emails while investigating possible leaks of classified information to Rosen for an article on North Korea's nuclear program.  Rosen was also threatened with jail time when the Obama Justice Department labeled him a "co-conspirator" with one of his sources who was charged with violating the Espionage Act of 1917 for leaking the information to Rosen.  Another journalist, James Risen of the New York Times, was similarly treated as a co-conspirator with a government source indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act.  Risen was subpoenaed and originally compelled to testify against one of his sources.

Sharyl Attkisson Notices Something Obama Photographer Reveals, in Relation to Benghazi.  As we can see, the Trump administration had no problem publishing the pictures of the situation room during the Baghdadi raid.  And that's on Saturday.  The Obama administration had no problem posting the pictures of the situation room from taking down bin Laden and that's from 2015.  Perhaps [Pete] Souza or someone else in the Obama administration could shed some light on why those Benghazi pictures are still not released since September 2012, some seven years later?

Squeaky clean, huh?  Obama forgot about these 25 scandals.  [#4] Obama's DOJ spies on AP reporters:  Just months before the 2012 presidential election, the Obama administration reportedly spied on Associated Press reporters.  WND reported when the AP said the Justice Department secretly seized two months of reporters' and editors' telephone records without explanation in April and May 2012.  In the AP's report on the scandal, President and CEO Gary Pruitt called the Justice Department's move "a massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.

Hey Joe Biden, Here Are Some Scandals You Forgot.  [Scroll down]  Today, President Trump's Twitter attacks on CNN reporters are threats to the future of free expression.  Back in 2012, the Obama's Department of Justice spied on the Associated Press, tapping around 20 different phone lines — including cell phone and home lines — that captured at least 100 staffers who worked for the outlet.  The government kept records of all outgoing calls "for both the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters" and the main line used by reporters in the House of Representatives.  The Justice Department had already spied on Fox News reporter James Rosen in 2010, collecting his telephone records, looking at his personal emails, and tracking his movements.  [Attorney General Eric] Holder, by the way, shopped the case to three separate judges, until he found one who let him name Rosen a co-conspirator in the crime of reporting the news.

PA targets reporters — but that's just half the story.  [Margaret] Atwood continued:  "While the United States isn't putting reporters in prison yet, the tactics of the current administration are dangerous."  Who could that be?  Naturally she meant Trump as being authoritarian, and dangerous enough to put reporters in prison, though not yet.  It's chilling, she warned, and it's coming.  Guess what?  It came.  But not under Trump.  It came under Obama.  Where was that speech from Miss Atwood?  Disobedient reporters were not tolerated and found themselves shipped to re-conditioning camp — under Obama.

Former Obama Staffer:  Facebook Allowed Us To Break User Data Rules Because They Were On Our Side.  Yesterday [3/19/2018], Facebook's stock tanked after it was revealed that they gave user data to a firm, Global Science Research (GSR), via an app.  This data was then given to Cambridge Analytica, a firm that was working for Donald J. Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.  The app not only gave GSR the data of the user who filled out the survey, but also that of all of the user's friends without them knowing it.  Some have noted a similar mining tool used by the Obama team, but they gathered information through their website (with permission from those who engaged) and the armies of volunteers, which was then matched with voter profiles.  Yes, still a bit creepy, especially since the campaign boasted that they probably knew every single one of the 67+ million voters who supported President Obama in 2012. [...] Facebook certainly knew that something was up concerning user data given the sheer volume GSR was mining from the app MyPersonality.  But we're not going to discuss Cambridge.  We're discussing what many of you have noted on various social media platforms about the inherent left wing bias ingrained in the services.

The Media Praised or Ignored Obama's Harvesting of Facebook Data.  The political and media establishment have whipped themselves into an almighty frenzy over allegations — yet to be confirmed — that Cambridge Analytica may have used improperly-obtained Facebook data during the 2016 election campaign, a charge they strenuously deny.  Online political advertising is now a "dark art," according to The Guardian.  "Data And The Threat to Democracy" is the blunt headline at the BBC.  Facebook likes helped Trump "steal the election," according to a columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer.  In the U.S., lawmakers are calling for an investigation into Facebook, and in the U.K., the authorities are seeking a warrant to raid the offices of Cambridge Analytica.

What's genius for Obama is scandal when it comes to Trump.  On Sunday [3/18/2018], The Guardian reported on the supposedly nefarious workings of President Trump's data-gathering team at Cambridge Analytica.  The report suggested that Cambridge Analytica had essentially issued questionnaires through a third party; those questionnaires, which were personality quizzes, requested that you use your Facebook login.  Cambridge Analytica then compiled data regarding those who completed the quiz and cross-referenced that data with political preferences in order to target potential voters.  This isn't particularly shocking.  In 2012, The Guardian reported that President Obama's reelection team was "building a vast digital data operation that for the first time combines a unified database on millions of Americans with the power of Facebook to target individual voters to a degree never achieved before." [...] Facebook had no problem with such activity then.  They do now.

Ex-Obama Campaign Official:  Here's How We Were Able To Mine So Much Facebook Data.  Amid the media blitz over an exposé by The Guardian revealing that Cambridge Analytica hired an analytics team back in 2014 to provide profile data on around 50 million Facebook users that the Guardian suggests was used to benefit the Trump campaign (which Cambridge maintains is simply untrue), past reports and new revelations about the Obama campaign similarly mining social media data have come to light.  On Monday [3/19/2018], the Independent Journal Review, one of the websites hardest hit by Facebook's recent newsfeed algorithm changes, highlighted a series of tweets by Carol Davidsen, former director of integration and media analytics for Obama for America, in which she explained how the campaign was able to mine Facebook's data in a way that employees for the company suggested they "wouldn't have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side."

Obama Echo Chamber Manufactures Media Narrative Ahead Of Investigations Into Hezbollah Scandal.  The former Obama officials who manufactured a media "echo chamber" to sell the Iran deal are now working to undermine a bombshell report that revealed how former President Barack Obama's administration derailed its own Drug Enforcement Agency's efforts to stop Islamist terrorist group Hezbollah from developing a global narcotics syndicate.  The Obama administration gave Hezbollah a pass, according to a bombshell Politico piece, in order to protect the Iran deal — one of the few remaining pillars of Barack Obama's legacy.  Two Republicans on the House oversight committee, Florida Rep. Ron DeSantis and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan announced a congressional investigation into the scandal on Thursday, calling on the Department of Justice to release all documents on the subject.

Trump vs.  Obama.  Obama is a coward.  Trump will call someone a name while Obama will anonymously source a smear through three levels of staffers, political allies and reporters.  Trump called CNN "Fake News" on camera.  Obama sourced Operation Rushbo, targeting Rush Limbaugh, through a variety of White House people and left-wing allies.  Trump will boot reporters he doesn't like.  Obama authorized secretly hacking the emails of a FOX News reporter.  Trump had an openly hostile conversation with the Prime Minister of Australia.  When Obama wanted to call Netanyahu "chickens***", he did it by having one of his people anonymously plant it with a reliable media sycophant, The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, before later having a spokesman disavow it.  Poultry ordure doesn't smell any worse than that.  But Obama is very careful to launch dirty attacks without getting any on his hands.  The insults are anonymously sourced.  The retaliation comes out of the bowels of the bureaucracy.  And he only finds out about it from the media.  That allows him to retain what he cares about most:  his popularity.

James Rosen:  Nothing Trump is Doing Even Comes Close to Obama's Criminal Persecution of the Press.  For all the rage exhibited by the media over Donald Trump's tweet calling the press the enemy, which they are, President Obama is the one who persecuted the press.  Obama is the one who called for control over the flow of free information.  He is the one who tells the media what to print.  Obama threatened reporters.  James Rosen himself was spied on by the Obama administration.  James Rosen told Jesse Waters on his Fox show last night that nothing the President has done approaches what Obama did to the press.

What if Obama dropped Hillary's email bombs?  Obama is a major narcissist who always wants to expand his personal power.  Being president has not satisfied his power-hungry ego; nothing ever will.  For months he has been talking about running for a third term, and he's back at it today.  Washington speculation has long focused on Obama's ambition to become SecGen of the U.N., an office he could try to expand into a genuine power center to achieve the utopian fantasy of the left, a world order in which everything is "properly" controlled from a dictatorial center.  This is consistent with the worst kind of Marxism, but it is also the dream of jihad:  world conquest.  Obama has shown time and time again that he is a sort of Marxo-jihadophile.

Matt Drudge suggests U.S. government cyberattack on Drudge Report website.  Matt Drudge wondered aloud Thursday evening [12/29/2016] whether his popular site was the object of a U.S. government cyberattack.  Via the Twitter account for his Drudge Report, he said his news-aggregation site is the victim of the "biggest DDoS since site's inception," referring to a Distributed Denial of Service attack.

Drudge suggests US government attacked his site:  Attkisson explains why.  Matt Drudge tweeted from his verified account about DDoS attacks on Drudge Report last night.  According to another tweet from Drudge, the attack was coming from thousands of sources, none of which could be traced to Fort Meade, where NSA headquarters is located.  Drudge Report tweeted that the attack lasted 90 minutes and was linked to an International Business Times article with more details.  International Business Times also cited a tweet alleging that RT News (a Russian news site) was also under attack.  This came just hours after the Obama administration announced it would retaliate against Russia for allegedly interfering in the 2016 election.

Legacy media fakery.  "Fake news."  Funny, isn't it:  After all these years and only after Hillary Clinton loses the presidential election to Donald Trump do we hear about the ominous scourge of the newly dubbed "fake news."  Yet, those complaining are the people who created and propagated the concept itself.  From Walter Cronkite, who bemoaned not being able to "shape the news" later in life, to President Obama's lackey Ben Rhodes.  An aspiring novelist before being tapped to assist the president, Mr. Rhodes bragged to The New York Times the Obama White House is essentially Edgar Bergen to the media's Charlie McCarthy.

Fake News Is Unreal.  Of course, social media didn't win the election for Trump, information did.  Social media was just the vessel, and if your entire foundation is built on lies, information is your enemy.  The phony capitalists at Bloomberg had hoped the free market might correct this horrible problem but now realize "There might be a need for the state to step in."  The president himself has claimed we need a "curating function" to handle this "wild-wild-west-of-information flow."  Later he complained to Rolling Stone that we are getting information from "completely different sources." [...] Barack is ultimately calling for the abolition of facts and suggesting America take up some kind of state-run media the way Britain and Canada have.  "If you're looking for fake news, you might want to check in on the people trying to shut it down."  I've lived in both those countries.  The scariest thing about state-run propaganda is how well it works.

Obama administration at war with RT, an alternative media source'.  If you look at the independent — that is, corporate-owned — media in the US they are all an echo chamber of US propaganda and that is completely outrageous, Brian Becker of Answer Coalition told RT. Other political observers also voiced their opinions.  Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova began Thursday's press briefing with a statement regarding a comment by the US State Department that RT will no longer be treated on the same 'level' as other news outlets.  It came after a RT journalist asked for evidence to back up the department's allegations that Russia hit a number of hospitals in airstrikes in Syria.

White House Leaks Private Trump Transition Communication To CBS News.  Almost everyone on the transition team needs a security clearance in order to see details of the candidate backgrounds.  It is no big deal, and has nothing to do with anything except the ability to review information, candidate experience, qualifications and provide an opinion.  However, that said — the bigger back story issue as outlined in this tweet from CBS is far more concerning.  It would appear the Obama administration is leaking private discussions to CBS news.

Nothing is coincidental in the Obama administration.
WH: Mosul offensive not timed for US election.  The White House said Monday [10/17/2016] that the Iraqi prime minister's decision to launch an offensive to drive the Islamic State out of Mosul was his alone and had nothing to do with the U.S. political calendar.  "The Iraqi central government is the one that is calling the shots, and they should.  They are a sovereign nation, and the support they are receiving from the [U.S. military] is at their request," presidential press secretary Josh Earnest said Monday [10/17/2016].  Earnest added that Obama administration is "confident" that Prime Minister Haider Abadi is making his timing decisions for the rights reasons.

Obama Calls for 'Truthiness Tests' for Media Companies.  President Barack Obama floated the notion of a test for media organizations, griping about the wide-spread existence of alternative media available in America.  He was critical of the current Wild West online environment where people could say anything on social media or on news websites.  "We are going to have to rebuild within this wild-wild-west-of-information flow some sort of curating function that people agree to," he said.

Barack Obama's Orwellian Farewell.  [Scroll down]  Considering the above examples, it was all-the-more astonishing to hear President Obama lashing out last week in a Pittsburgh speech about citizens needing to "sift through lies and distortions" in the media.  The President looked back fondly to the days before Talk Radio or blogging or Social Media when just three networks delivered what he called "fact-based news" that people trusted.  Mr. Obama — as the hourglass runs out on his time in the White House — added these chilling suggestions:  "We are going to have to rebuild within this wild-wild-west-of-information flow some sort of curating function that people agree to,....  There has to be, I think, some sort of way in which we can sort through information that passes some basic truthiness tests and those that we have to discard, because they just don't have any basis in anything that's actually happening in the world."  One can only speculate as to what Mr. Obama's proposed "curating function" for news could accomplish which the Associated Press is not already doing.

Bill Clinton's ObamaCare rant was scripted — and approved by Obama.  When Bill Clinton recently criticized ObamaCare as "the craziest thing in the world," it looked to everyone like he had given Donald Trump a stick to beat Hillary with at their second presidential debate this Sunday at Washington University in St.  Louis.  But as usual, the Big Dog was crazy like a fox.  According to multiple sources both in the White House and the Clinton campaign, Bill was following a carefully crafted script that was poll tested and endorsed by his wife and Barack Obama.

Emails Suggest CBS's 'Face The Nation' Agreed to WH Demands Not to Ask Kerry About Clinton Emails.  Emails obtained by the RNC and provided first to The Wall Street Journal show that the White House reached out to CBS's Face the Nation to ask that the topic of Hillary Clinton's emails be made off-limits during an interview of Secretary of State John Kerry, and that the White House believed CBS had agreed.  WSJ reported late Thursday [10/6/2016] that the Hillary Clinton campaign and White House collaborated to present a unified P.R. front when the story broke that Clinton had used a private email server while at the State Department.  Accordingly, White House communications director Jennifer Palmieri and State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki exchanged emails to discuss the upcoming TV appearance by Kerry.

State Dept.  And White House Coordinated To 'Crush' Clinton Email Coverage.  The State Department and White House coordinated to shield Sec. of State John Kerry from being asked last March about Hillary Clinton's emails in an interview on CBS News' "Face the Nation," newly released emails show.  "Think we can get this done so [Kerry] is not asked about email," Jennifer Palmieri, then the White House's communications director, wrote to then-State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki on March 12, 2015, two days after Clinton held her first press conference to answer questions about her email practices.

Barack Obama Spent BILLIONS Of Taxpayer Dollars Trying To Convince You He's Smart.  It has been eight years of the most ego-driven presidency in the history of the Republic.  And if the devil is to be found in the details, those details have now revealed the extent of Barack Obama's yearning to convince others of his own magnificence — an endeavor he spent a half-BILLION dollars per year of taxpayer dollars on.  And beyond that direct $500 million per year federal employee public relations army, is another ONE BILLION dollars the administration is utilizing for outside the administration PR firms to spin his policies in a favorable light.  That is a one billion dollar advertising campaign to combat reports on administration-related scandals, the still-tepid economy, unemployment, the rise of ISIS, etc.  In short, it is the pay-to-play scheme that Team Obama has utilized to control the Mainstream Media.

Obama's army of public relations staffers cost U.S. taxpayers $500M per year.  President Obama has swelled the ranks of government PR, adding hundreds of new public relations specialists to the federal payroll during his time in office, costing taxpayers a half-billion dollars a year, the government's chief watchdog said Wednesday [10/5/2016].  That doesn't include the more than $100 million the administration spends annually for help from private sector spinmeisters, nor does it account for the $800 million spent on contracts for advertising in 2015, according to the Government Accountability Office.  "Spending $1.5 billion on government PR activities is a huge waste of money.  That sort of spending should be drastically scaled back," said Chris Edwards, a federal budget scholar at the Cato Institute.

WH defends $1.5 billion in PR expenses.  The White House on Thursday defended its decision to significantly expand the ranks of public relations specialists on the executive payroll during President Obama's time in office, and cast it as a transparency exercise that's needed to ensure officials are communicating "effectively" to the public.  The Obama administration has spent more than $1.5 billion on government public relations staffers a year, as well as additional private-sector communications specialists, since the president took office, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Wednesday [10/65/2016].  The White House's chief spokesman, Josh Earnest, defended the move and called it money well spent.

The Unstoppable PR Machine Fed By Your Taxes.  A new report commissioned by Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo. (F, 58%), who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, found that government agencies spend about $1.5 billion every year on advertising and public relations.  It may take a minute for the absurdity of that to sink in.

FEC Dems lay groundwork to ban Fox, WSJ political coverage.  In their biggest threat yet to conservative media, Democrats on the Federal Election Commission are laying the groundwork to bar companies with even the tiniest foreign ownership from American politics, a move that could ban Fox, the Wall Street Journal and even the New York Times from covering political races or giving endorsements.

Obama operatives stripped Judical Watch of 'media' status, overcharged for FOIA requests.  Political operatives within the Obama administration wrongly punished conservative legal group Judicial Watch, stripping it of "media" status and trying to force it to pay higher fees for its open records requests, the General Services Administration inspector general said in a letter released Thursday [9/29/2016].  The GSA botched several high-profile open records requests, delaying them for months while political appointees got involved, Inspector General Carol F. Ochoa said.  The findings were released while the administration was facing charges of slow-walking open records requests for Hillary Clinton's emails, as well as other requests.  In the case of Judicial Watch, the order to strip it of media status came from political operatives with long ties to Democratic causes — and even from the White House.

Government: New 700,000-Word Regulation is Good for You.  The nine-second video of two federal bureaucrats the White House posted on its blog last week was notable for something it omitted.  That something was very big — and putting it on display might not have fit with the apparent propaganda purpose of the video. [...] The regulation is 1,690 pages long.  Page 1,689 is the signature page for [Transportation] Secretary [Anthony] Foxx.  Page 1,690 is the signature page for [EPA] Administrator [Gina] McCarthy.  When Foxx and McCarthy signed the regulation — as recorded in the video on the White House website — they did not place the first 1,688 pages anywhere within view of the camera.  Was that in deference to trees?  Or did the Obama administration not want to show America that these two unelected bureaucrats were signing a 1,690-page regulation.

These three FEC commissioners must be removed from office.  Democratic senators are now trying to weaken Second, Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights in their push for new gun laws.  They also controversially voted in 2014 to weaken the First Amendment, specifically to let both Congress and state legislators regulate political speech.  Yet even they have not yet dared to launch an attack on the freedom of the press.  But their fellow partisans on the Federal Election Commission do not scruple to take such a step.  They are completely out of control; they voted, it was revealed Wednesday [6/29/2016], to regulate the press and the editorial judgment of its members.  After years of chomping at the bit to go after conservative bloggers and aggregators on the internet, the three Democratic commissioners on the FEC went even further with an unprecedented effort to insert themselves into a cable news network's editorial judgment.

Obama mourns and keeps moving.  One day after the president made a somber visit to Orlando, the first family was on vacation here Friday [6/17/2016].  The three-day family trip to national parks in Carlsbad, N.M., and Yosemite, Calif., was planned long before the tragic terrorist attack that killed 49 at a nightclub in Orlando last weekend.  Timed to the 100th anniversary of the creation of the national park system, the excursion had a policy component:  aiming to draw attention to the conservation of federal lands and protecting the environment.

Obama, Immigration Propaganda and our National Identity.  Fox News reports that the White House has drafted a social media script on immigration for its Hollywood zombies to disseminate.  You may recall that the White House furnished gun control talking points for its Tinseltown puppets earlier this year.  The entertainment shills dutifully delivered President Obama's thinly disguised message for gun control with the mindless hashtag "StopGunViolence."  The White House supplied the script, imploring its actor enablers to tweet it and post it on other social media.  It doesn't matter that Obama's lawless proposals would do nothing to make Americans safer.  What's important is that liberals care, as evidenced by their painfully vacuous hashtag-parroting tweets.

White House Emailed Pro-Immigration Talking Points to Celebrity Influencers.  The Obama administration has sent an email containing ready-made pro-immigration talking points to top-level Hollywood influencers in an effort to encourage them to promote the White House's immigration policies on social media during June's Immigrant Heritage Month.  According to Fox News, White House Associate Director of Public Engagement Jesse Moore sent an email to a number of unidentified Hollywood A-listers and executives last week with a list of short, social media-ready talking points that the Obama administration hopes the celebrities will post for their millions of followers on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

The Editor says...
As I have said before, the opinions of celebrities are no more valuable than yours or mine.  This is especially true if the celebrities' opinions have been fed to them by the propaganda department of the White House.

The Rigged Information Game.  The term, "State Media" has been an apt descriptor for every administration's media pawns since WWII, but in the past seven years, collaboration by government and friendly outlets has reached new heights of deception and perhaps, illegality.  The Congressional Research Service (CRS) pointed out there's been nothing new about the White House's use of government resources for propaganda in recent decades, but in the early years of the Obama administration, it had already "leveraged ties to the arts and entertainment community to embed propaganda in the content of television programming and artwork.  These propaganda efforts violated appropriations riders and federal law prohibiting the use of appropriated funds for publicity or propaganda purposes." [...] [O]ur "press" is no longer so free, inasmuch as much of it — today's State Media — is inextricably circled with Academia and the Progressive Establishment (which should be an oxymoron but isn't).  This is a trilateral commission you never hear about — all useful idiots propagating the progressive agenda every day and night.  As repeaters — not reporters — of talking points provided by their political masters, State Media operatives have been the dupes of a philosophy that bodes an end for the America of Washington, Lincoln, and Reagan.

Obama eager to 'explode onto the scene' in 2016.  This story comes to CNN from an unnamed White House source, someone who apparently knows exactly what Obama is feeling and is not afraid to share it, along with portions of his new speech.  Does anyone think sources this close to the president just leak things like this willy nilly?  Do his top aides stand around the water cooler and say 'Hey, did you see that CNN story today?  Yeah, that was me.'  I don't think so.  This has all the signs of a carefully crafted piece of PR placed to create anticipation among the Democratic faithful, some of whom might be feeling down about the mauling Hillary Clinton's reputation took last week.

How Obama Manipulates the News.  [Scroll down]  The Samuels piece shows an Obama administration no less willing than previous administrations to assemble insider teams to construct elaborate sales pitches for its controversial policies.  Compare for example, the "war room" quarterbacked by Rhodes that drew on staffers from the State Department, the Treasury Department, the Defense Department, the United Nations delegation and the National Security Council to push the Iran deal to Congress to previous White House initiatives.

Former White House Reporter:  Media 'Happy to Be Managed' by Obama.  Retired USA Today White House reporter Richard Benedetto penned an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal on Friday [5/20/2016] titled "How Obama Gets Away With It."  He suggested "Usually when an incumbent president is leaving office and a slew of candidates are battling for his job, that departing chief executive's record is a major campaign issue."  But Obama's record in office is not an issue.  Obviously, one reason is the Republican establishment didn't want Obama to be an issue, which is why they moved to take any budget fight with Obama off the table for the rest of his presidency.  Benedetto noted "Donald Trump's bombastic candidacy is a huge distraction and often blocks out or obliterates more-substantive issues."  He also argued the media is putty in Obama's hands.

Where did the money come from?
J-Street was paid by Obama administration to promote Iran deal.  J-Street received more than half a million dollars to advocate for the Obama administration's controversial nuclear deal with Iran, it has been revealed.  The liberal Jewish group, which bills itself as "pro-Israel and pro-peace" but which critics say takes solely anti-Israel stances, was paid the money by the White House's main surrogate organization for selling the deal.  The Ploughshares Fund was named in an explosive New York Times profile of Obama aid Ben Rhodes, in which the President's chief spin doctor listed the central groups responsible for creating an "echo chamber" in order to promote the deal, even when the White House's official line didn't jibe with the facts.  According to Associated Press, the group's 2015 annual report details several organizations which received substantial funds to peddle the official White House line on the nuclear deal.  Among them was National Public Radio (NPR), which received a $100,000 grant to promote "national security reporting that emphasizes the themes of U.S. nuclear weapons policy and budgets, Iran's nuclear program, international nuclear security topics and U.S. policy toward nuclear security."

Bathrooms are latest diversion from Obama's and Clinton's troubles.  In yet another executive overreach to redirect public discussion, Obama arbitrarily ruled that every public school receiving federal funds must allow the minute fraction of society who are transgender to use the restroom of their choice, not their biological gender.  We're being played again, folks.  Here's what's really at stake:  Obama's heir-apparent and legacy protector, the 68-year-old Hillary Clinton, is getting shredded in Democratic primary after primary by a 74-year-old socialist, Bernie Sanders. [...] Obama would also like to distract you from the slipping new-job creation rates.  Obama Care and its artificial state exchanges are crumbling beneath the weight of their own costs and disincentives. [...] Disturbing reports of the military's poor readiness mount, including planes being cannibalized for parts to keep half the jets flying.

Obama the Fabulist.  A number of people at AT and elsewhere have written about the New York Times' fascinating but also deeply disturbing story of how Ben Rhodes, a callow, unsuccessful but well-connected short-story writer became the Obama administration's primary foreign policy mandarin.  This should come as no surprise to careful observers of this administration.  Rhodes, according to the Times piece, is Obama's foreign policy "guru" a man who has a "mind meld" with the president.  What Rhodes and the president share though, is not so much a leftist approach to foreign affairs — though presumably that plays a role — but rather a talent for creating foreign policy fables that flatter Obama and his coterie, and can be passed off to lapdog media types as "successes."  In this, Rhodes is just one more piece of the fictional story that is Barack Hussein Obama, the country and the world his stage, and the rest of us merely players — if that.

Brilliant Fools:  The Short Story of America's Liberal Elite.  The story is rich with detail that should scandalize anyone who is concerned with either truth or humility in American policymaking.  Rhodes apparently lied to sell the Iran deal to the American public, counting on ignorant, sympathetic leftist journalists and activists to peddle the administration's foreign-policy line and dominate the public debate.

Meet the Democratic Liars Club.  [Scroll down]  The latest clincher is the admission of a top White House aide that much about the Iranian nuclear deal was a fabrication sold to a lazy, gullible press corps.  Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes boasts that most reporters were too dumb to know or care they were being misled.  "The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns," Rhodes told The New York Times.  "They literally know nothing."

An Epiphany on the Road to Tehran.  The internet was abuzz following a story by David Samuels on the jerk who admitted he manipulated the truth to get the president's absurd deal with Iran accepted (accepted, that is, by the Democrats in Congress who blocked a Republican resolution to reject it).  In case you missed it I'll provide a quick summary of the salient parts, but that shouldn't be the end of the story:  the press having allowed itself to be flimflammed into being mere White House megaphones needs to redeem itself, should it care to win back even the tiniest shred of credibility.

The runt of Rhodes.  President Obama and his team hold a low opinion of the intelligence of the American people. [...] Now comes Obama deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes to reveal the lies on which Obama's alliance with the Islamic Republic of Iran was promoted. [...] Rhodes is not, as he should be, confined to fetching coffee and performing other menial tasks befitting his qualifications to formulate national security policy. [...] Rhodes himself, however, is an odious ignoramus who knows one thing:  Obama's servitors in the mainstream media are useful idiots.

White House BRAGS about how it tricked reporters into cheerleading for Obama's Iran nuclear deal by creating a media 'echo chamber'.  The Obama White House set up an 'echo chamber' of planted experts to control the public discussion about the president's slow-brewing nuclear deal with Iran last year, according to the puppetmaster behind the program.  Ben Rhodes, the administration's top foreign-policy messaging expert, deployed 'legions of arms-control experts' to propagandize about the virtues of the controversial agreement, The New York Times Magazine will report on Sunday [5/8/2016].

How Obama plays his adoring fans in the press.  It turns out, for example, that the story carried by the press about the Iran deal being possible because of the election of a more moderate government in Tehran, was made up.  It was a fiction, as various actual experts on the subject warned at the time.  That is, in real terms, it was a lie.  The deal was in fact already in the works in 2012, a year earlier than anyone knew.  And the whole idea that Iran's government was split over this deal between moderates and hard-liners was a fiction spun in order to create excuses for Iran's persistence in belligerent behavior later on.  Rhodes and others worked to suppress inconvenient news at inopportune moments, such as when Iran captured ten U.S. servicemen on the day of the State of the Union address.

Richard Littlejohn argues the Obamas are desperate to provide a certain agenda whenever they visit Britain.  Take another look at the audience at Barack Obama's 'town hall' meeting in London.  Is this a portrait of Britain you recognise?  I know we are ordered to celebrate 'diversity' at all times, but was it really a genuine representation of our population as a whole?  OK, so London is now one of the most multicultural cities on earth, to the extent where some parts of town can feel like a foreign country. [...] Needless to say, there was the obligatory number of women in Islamic headgear, without which no televised gathering can be broadcast.

Closing Gitmo is just a distraction from Obama's ISIS failures.  The president says Guantanamo Bay makes us less safe because terrorists use it as a propaganda tool.  But terrorists use just about any type of military response as a propaganda tool.  That's no reason to unilaterally disarm.  And, I can tell you that when we're talking about Gitmo, we're talking about the worst of the worst terrorists in the entire world.  The president isn't talking about trying to move people to the United States prison system that are low level criminals or terrorists.  These are the worst of the worst, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was the mastermind behind 9/11.  Not only that, but 30 percent of former Guantanamo prisoners are either confirmed or suspected of re-engaging in terrorism.  In fact, just this week, a former Guantanamo prisoner was arrested in Spain after trying to recruit for ISIS.  There's a reason these terrorists are in Guantanamo.  And we should keep them there.

Here Are President Obama's Executive Actions on Gun Control.  President Obama will officially announce new executive actions on gun control from the White House Tuesday, but released details about what to expect Monday evening [1/4/2016].

The Editor says...
The Twitter reactions show that Obama's actions are nothing new, that his statistics are stretched, and his huffing and puffing about executive actions were just dramatic effects to attract news coverage.

Obama Administration hides gay agenda in vandalism crime at Missouri Mosque.  The DOJ misreported anti-Muslim graffiti on a Missouri Mosque by leaving out very important details that will change one's perspective on the crime.  The DOJ reported it as an ordinary hate crime towards Muslims and the mean words spray painted on a mosque then seemed to be from a random "hater" of Islam and a senseless act.  However, the vandalism was actually a pro-homosexual response to the way Muslims mistreat gays.

Calculated Candor Inside Obama's Off-the-Record Briefings.  Hours after President Obama announced in a 2014 speech that he was escalating his campaign against Islamic extremists, a number of prominent columnists suggested they knew exactly what he was thinking. [...] What none of the journalists told readers, because they had promised the White House that they would not, was that their attempts to portray the president's intentions had followed a lengthy and secret meeting with Mr. Obama the day he delivered the speech.

Inside Obama's secret pity party.  Poor Barack Obama.  Americans don't appreciate his wisdom, and those nasty Republicans are picking on him again.  Woe is the leader of the free world.  That was the essence of his private meeting with friendly journalists, where the president gave his water-carriers talking points so he could jet off to Hawaii and still look as if he's engaged in national security.  The session was off the record, so Obama couldn't be quoted or put on the spot with tough, public questions.  But his trademark self-pity, partisan pique and warped ideas came through in the subsequent stories and columns.

Feds shelling out billions to public relations firms.  The federal government has spent more than $4 billion on public relations services since 2007, according to a watchdog group, with more than half of the money going to the world's largest firms.  A review conducted by Open the Books found that there are now 3,092 public affairs professionals working in the government, an increase of 15 percent — or about 400 people — over the past seven years.

President Obama, national assignment editor.  White House officials commonly whisper story suggestions to Beltway reporters.  "Did you see this?" they might e-mail a reporter with a link to something they find outrageous and in need of debunking.  Such tips often arrive under the protection of off-the-record terms.

Journalists: Obama Isn't Open And Transparent After All.  A coalition of 50 journalism groups Tuesday condemned President Barack Obama for his stranglehold on information — this despite promising to be the most open and transparent president.  The most recent call to end the strict control of information is not the first time the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) has tried to end the practice.  Despite the previous attempts, the administration has continued to ignore them. David Cuillier, a chairman for the group, noted what the Obama administration is doing falls in strict contrast to his earlier promises.

Obama: The Media Needs to 'Maintain Perspective' in Terrorism Coverage.  While President Obama was in Malaysia earlier [11/22/2015], he held a press conference and addressed the media's coverage of terrorism issues.  [Video clip]

More evidence that late-night comedians are really political activists:
Jon Stewart's secret White House visits.  To engage privately with the president in his inner sanctum at two sensitive moments — previously unreported meetings that are listed in the White House visitor logs and confirmed to POLITICO by three former Obama aides — speaks volumes about Stewart and his reach, which goes well beyond the million or so viewers who tune into The Daily Show on most weeknights.  Love Stewart's jokes or hate them, he has proven to be a unique voice who is capable of turning in-the-weeds policy discussions into viral video sensations that the country is still talking about the next morning.

Jon Stewart Made Secret Visits To Obama White House.  Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central, made multiple secret visits to the White House during Barack Obama's presidency, the Virginia-based political blog Politico revealed Tuesday [7/28/2015].  "Jon Stewart slipped unnoticed into the White House in the midst of the October 2011 budget fight, summoned to an Oval Office coffee with President Barack Obama that he jokingly told his escort felt like being called into the principal's office," the article by Darren Samuelsohn opens.  Stewart made another visit to the White House in February 2014, shortly before Obama warned Russia of potential repercussions if it made a bigger military intervention into Ukraine.

As Ramadi Falls to ISIS, POTUS Goes Golfing, Gets New Twitter Account.  During the Iraq War, the United States paid a terrible price to secure Anbar province from terrorists.  Between April of 2004 and September of 2007, 1,335 Americans and nearly 9,000 Iraqis died in the battle for Fallujah and Ramadi.  But by 2008, the battle had been won — and liberated Iraqi citizens could again walk the streets without fear.  Now Ramadi and Fallujah are back in the hands of terrorists.  But never mind that, the big news today is that POTUS has a new Twitter account, you guys!

White House Press Corps: Obama Doesn't Like Us.  A whopping 78 percent of White House reporters who participated in a Politico survey say President Obama doesn't like them, and about the same percent think Michelle Obama doesn't like them either.  The results suggest the press corps perception of itself is vastly different than that held by many Americans — particularly conservatives — who perceive a cozy, mutually nurturing relationship between press and president.  The poll was conducted mainly on background, with reporters not having to attach their names to the answers for publication.  Of 65 reporters who answered the question, 51 said Obama "dislikes the press."

Reporters refuse Obama's dismissal from golf course, are sent to the 'shed'.  After a two hour flight, Obama motorcaded to the posh Floridian National Golf Club in Palm City to play a round and also stay.  At that point, the pool reporter, Byron Tau of the Wall Street Journal, wrote in his report to other correspondents, "The White House has called a lid.  Pool does not anticipate news or POTUS sightings until tomorrow's departure of Air Force One." [...] The trip will cost taxpayers $843,508 in airfare alone.

How Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama Became Media Control Freaks.  Embattled former secretary of state Hillary Clinton can console herself with the knowledge that she's not alone.  The presumptive presidential candidate and email deleter — whose apparent reluctance to release public records and documents prompted the Associated Press to sue the State Department this week — is by no means unique in her wish to starve the insatiable media, or at least restrict ravenous reporters to a bland diet of happy news.

Attkisson: White House Using Tax Dollars for Studio-Grade 'Pure Propaganda'.  Former CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson said the Obama administration has been producing its own video content to promote "unfiltered" messages with taxpayer-funded staff, including hairstylists, makeup artists and wardrobe consultants.  By cutting out the news media, Attkisson said the White House has figured out how to avoid questions and accountability.  She also revealed that the Department of Agriculture has more than 1,200 "media relations employees" nationwide.

Michelle Malkin Comments on Obama Administration's 'Systemic Truth Suppression'.  Yesterday, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little confirmed that on November 1, an unmanned U.S. drone was fired upon by Iran.  The incident happened over international waters, about 16 miles off the Iranian coast.  The drone was not hit, and returned to base safely.  Now questions are being asked about why this incident was not disclosed until a few days after the presidential election.

Foodstamps Surge to All Time High.  The Obama administration has finally released its report on the number of Americans receiving food stamps.  This report was released days after the 2012 election, nine days past its traditional release date.  The numbers show that Americans on food stamps is at an all time high.  Worse, the report shows the highest one month jump ever recorded.

Foodstamps Surge to All Time High.  You may recall that just before the election, the Obama administration announced that Hurricane Sandy was going to delay the release of October's jobless numbers. [...] While the unemployment report was ultimately released on schedule and before the election, now we find out about another report, the food stamp report, delayed for nine days after its traditional release date.  This report was also supposed to have been released before the election.  This report is devastating.

Foodstamps Surge By Most In One Year To New All Time Record, In Delayed Release.  [Scroll down]  There was, however, another closely tracked number which perhaps is far more indicative of the economic "growth" in the past 4 years, which certainly had a delayed release.  The number of course is that showing how many Americans are on foodstamps, and usually is released at the end of the month, or the first day or two of the next month.  This time the USDA delayed its release nine days past the semi-official deadline, far past the election, and until Friday night to report August foodstamp data.

Obama Administration Hid Record Food Stamp Numbers Until After Election.  The Obama Administration hid the record food stamp numbers from the American public until after the election.

With Election Over, the News Flows Freely.  Whether this decision is based on a careful analysis of costs and benefits I do not know.  But it is reasonable to assume that the studies, if any, that underlie this decision were not completed immediately after, rather than before the election.  They were almost certainly in hand, but their release delayed until after the results of the election were known so as not to cast doubt on the sincerity of the president's devotion to "all of the above."

The Politics of Gun Control.  Biden's task force isn't going to study gun violence.  Obama announced what he wanted in the report and demanded it be delivered in January.  His timing is another political master stroke:  Obama is bringing the gun "crisis" to a head at the same time that the financial crisis will impose higher taxes across every sector of the economy and the government will — just like it did in 2011 — hit the ceiling on federal debt.  By engineering the gun debate so that it will come to fever pitch at the same time as the economic mess, Obama is counting on the strategy that has worked for him before.

Obama Using Gun Control to Distract from Financial Crisis.  As our national debt continues to soar, taxes to rise, and the overall economy to tank, President Obama is talking about... gun control.  He is doing this so he can seize on the emotions of those who operate emotionally rather than rationally, thereby diverting their attention from the real crisis our nation faces right now — which is financial in nature.

White House 'blocks use of pictures of Malia and Sasha Obama on the beach'.  Paparazzi shots of Malia and Sasha Obama have been blocked by the White House after a photographer reportedly stumbled across the girls on a public beach in Hawaii. [...] Secret service agents, who were accompanying the girls on their walk, immediately approached the photographer and asked for identification.  They allowed the man to keep his camera but gave him a stern warning to stop photographing the first daughters.

After critical New York Times article, White House releases gender inclusive staff photo.  The White House's 'Photo of the Day' is a much more gender inclusive photo of President Obama's senior staff after the New York Times ran a story criticizing the president for his male-dominated staff.

Prop-a-palooza: The Use and Abuse of Kiddie Human Shields.  The president of the United States will release a binder full of new gun-control executive orders on Wednesday [1/16/2013].  Instead of standing alone, bearing full responsibility for the imperial actions he is about to take, President Obama will surround himself with an audience of kids who wrote to him after the Newtown, Conn., school massacre.  This is the most cynical in Beltway theatrical staging — a feckless attempt to invoke "For the Children" immunity by hiding behind them.

W.H. Releases Letters from Little Kids Pleading for Gun Control.  Half way through the article, the AP admits, "The White House shared three such letters with The Associated Press, from young writers who seemed to agree that Obama should do what's necessary to make it harder for people to get guns."  White House spokesman Jay Carney announced yesterday that Obama will be surrounded by little kids when he announces his gun proposal later today. [...] The White House appears not to have released a single letter to the AP in opposition to President Obama's gun proposal.

The Editor says...
I suspect the little kids were instructed by their unionized teachers to write to the President, and were probably told exactly what to say.  The little kids, as far as I know, have not been interrogated about their letter-writing initiative.

Obama Uses Kids As Gun-Control Human Shields.  Instead of providing them the same armed security his children get, the president exploits children as stage props to repeal a Second Amendment they haven't been, and likely never will be, taught about.

White House Posts Videos of Children Beseeching President to Act on Guns.  The White House was quick to call the NRA "repugnant and cowardly" for allegedly dragging the president's children into the battle over gun control.  (In an ad released earlier this week, the NRA pointed to the fact that the president's children are protected by armed guards, and asked provocatively, "Are the president's children more important than yours?")  President Obama, however, did not hesitate to bring other people's children into the grudge match.

Obama Operatives Training Media How to Sell Obamacare.  The Old Media is getting a little help from team Obama on how to report about Obamacare the "correct" way.  To achieve that goal, Obama operatives are setting up propaganda symposiums for journalists and giving large cash donations to journalism associations to help spread Obama's word.  This Obamacare propaganda campaign seriously blurs the line between government and "journalism" and seems to be a blatant attempt by team Obama to write the media's Obamacare stories for them.

Obama's shotgun photo: Fake or for real?  Yesterday Obama was on the gun violence kick.  Today, it's immigration reform.  Both of which keep the public's mind off the sagging Obama economy.

The Obama Scorecard.  Obama desperately wants to bury the deficit and debt issue by ignoring it, not by dealing with it.  The media will help, as we've seen by their generally favorable coverage of his inaugural and State of the Union speeches.  But Obama also needs a distraction from Republican emphasis on his fiscal recklessness.  If you think this tactic cannot work, think again.  We've just seen it work brilliantly in Obama's reelection campaign.

Distractions — Defeating Obama with Aikido.  Barack Obama is a master of distraction.  It is perhaps the single thing he does best.  Indeed, with the help of his loyal media claque, the president is almost as good with distraction as Roger Federer with a tennis racquet or Mickey Mantle with a baseball bat.  When the public starts looking closely at what he is doing, making him vulnerable on matters of genuine significance, Obama changes the subject, distracting the public with a relatively minor issue.

Press corps expresses 'frustration' over lack of access to Obama.  The White House press corps on Sunday expressed frustration with the lack of access given to President Obama this weekend, during his trip to Florida.  White House Correspondents Association President Ed Henry released a statement Sunday evening [2/17/2013], saying that the press corps had not been given adequate access to the president and that the group would press for "transparency" in the future, according to a pool report.

Limbaugh: If you criticized The Daily Caller for interrupting Obama, don't whine about his inaccessibility now.  On his Tuesday [2/19/2013] radio show, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh excoriated Politico for publishing a piece by Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei that lamented the Obama administration's careful curtailment of "impromptu" media moments, noting that the Virginia-based outlet last summer chastised The Daily Caller's Neil Munro for daring to ask the president an unsolicited question in the Rose Garden.

Obama, the puppet master.  President Barack Obama is a master at limiting, shaping and manipulating media coverage of himself and his White House.

Obama is [photographed] leaving $1m golfing weekend with Tiger Woods.  Pictures finally appeared of President Obama on Monday evening [2/18/2013] as he headed home to Washington after a relaxing golf weekend which was kept heavily under wraps.

The Editor asks...
Why would Mr. Obama keep an extravagant weekend "under wraps" unless he was doing something shameful?

CNN and NBC News: Is journalistic integrity dead?  The truth seekers have gone, the truth tellers are rapidly dying off.  The "news" is little more than political campaign for a particular party.  Every subject is skewed and skewered to the point that everything you see hear and read should be taken with the proverbial "grain of salt."  A recent article on the popular progressive website Politico refers to Obama as a "puppet master", calling him "a master at limiting, shaping and manipulating media coverage of himself and his White House."  While this states the obvious, they go wrong in their claim that the media is powerless to do anything except parrot White House press releases and accept them as cold hard facts.  Whatever happened to questioning the "facts"?

Fineman: "It's Hard To Get Answers To Simple Questions" From White House.  Even reporters asking simple questions, simple direct factual questions of low-ranking administration officials, have a hard time getting answers.

DC Government 'Reviewing' Firefighters' Appearance With Obama.  Earlier this week, Obama surrounded himself with police and other first responders during remarks regarding the real world impact of the across-the-board package of federal spending cuts known as sequestration, looming in March should Congress fail to reach a deficit reduction agreement.  But Washington's fire and EMS chief told a local TV station the appearance of three firefighters at the event may have violated department regulations.

Is Obama Using Anti-Gun Spambots?  Texas Congressman Steve Stockman has blown the whistle on President Obama's anti-gun Twitter campaign.  Stockman says that hardly any of Obama's anti-gun tweets come from actual human beings, while most are computer-generated spam.

'Statist propaganda:' Michelle Obama slammed for using military as 'props' during Oscars appearance.  First lady Michelle Obama is under fire after she appeared as a long-distance award presenter on the Oscars Sunday evening [2/24/2013], flanked by active-duty American service members.  The well-dressed members of the military stood attentively behind the first lady inside the White House as she presented the award for best picture to the movie "Argo."  But the use of those service members has left some of her critics fuming.

Obama is the closest thing to Nixon we've seen in 40 years.  In my lifetime, in over 40 years in national politics, Mr. Obama is the only president who comes close to rivaling Richard Nixon for fundamental disingenuousness.  However, some things never change, just as Woodward and Bernstein were attacked then by the establishment mainstream media for daring to question a president — or do a story that they wouldn't touch — they are once again attacking Woodward the way they did when he and Carl Bernstein pursued Watergate.

Senator: Obama has media 'enemies list'.  Escalating concerns that the Obama White House has begun exacting revenge on its critics on Capitol Hill and the media, a long-time Oklahoma senator Friday [3/1/2013] charged that the president and his team have a Nixon-era style "enemies list."  Without providing further details, Sen. James Inhofe said, "I don't think that.  I know that."

The Press Officially Abdicates Its Role.  The first clue I detected as to what's really happening was Jim VandeHei's and Mike Allen's horrific exercise in deceptive self-pity ("Obama, the puppet master") at Politico on February 18.  I was hoping it was an aberration.  I should have known better.  The pair consumed over 1,800 words crying a river of phony crocodile tears because, in their view, President Barack Obama, the White House, and its permanent campaign now housed at Organizing For Action (OFA) have become so awesome and overwhelming in their message discipline, information management, and direct social media motivational efforts that it's now absolutely impossible for any group of human beings to appropriately scrutinize their actions [...]

Scarborough Recalls His Own WH Threats.  [Bob] Woodward has underlined that the while the White House is pushing blame on Republicans, the whole idea of sequestration was theirs to begin with.  While conservatives were pleased to see his report, the White House was not:  Woodward said he received an email from a top White House official saying, "you will regret doing this."

Lanny Davis: Obama White House Threatened Washington Times Over My Column.  Lanny Davis, who served under President Bill Clinton as special counsel to the White House, told Washington, D.C.'s WMAL this morning [2/28/2013] that the Obama White House had threatened the Washington Times over his column, warning that the Times would suffer limited access to White House officials and might have its White House credentials revoked.

All the President's Thugs.  Hey, Bob, you can't say we didn't warn you.  We knew this White House was capable of attacking even the great Bob Woodward for telling the truth.  You could have listened to Michael Barone.  He saw it coming even before Barack Obama was elected.

Obama's Abusive Staff.  There's been a lot of attention to the battle between the White House and Bob Woodward, but [an] article by National Journal's Ron Fournier, on the toxic relationship he has with some high-ranking White House sources, is also worth reading.  Last week Fournier sent out a tweet that angered the White House.  Here's what happened next: [...]

When the Obama Administration Goes After a Journalist for Reporting the Truth.  As the broken bodies of journalists abused by this Adminstration begin to pile up — making the Nixon Administration look like boy scouts — media types just might begin to report the news objectively and with greater regard for the truth than their personal, ideological predilections have, to date, allowed.  This is a change we can all hope for.

Journalists unthreatened by Obama aides demand to be threatened too.  Where's the fairness from the Fair Share president in only a couple of journalists being threatened over their Obama criticism?  How would you like to be among the growing number of aspiring critics of the Windy City Wonder?  You point out his lies.  His hypocrisies.  His cronyism.  His duplicities.  His waste.  His wanton spending.  His phony claims.  His arrogance.  And what do you get?  Nothing.  Nada.

Woodward Revelations Expose Obama As Bully Of Media.  "WoodwardGate" is snowballing into a Washington press corps obsession.  But all Bob Woodward did was report facts, and he is among numerous journalists threatened by this White House.

When you've got a country to transform, any caviling is disloyalty.  The Bob Woodward/Ron Fournier/Lanny Davis psychodrama is another small reminder that the Obama administration continues to assume that the press should be little more than a veritable Ministry of Truth.  Its proper duty is to serve the White House and promote the progressive agenda of Barack Obama.  Any were considered suspect who questioned whether those exalted ends should really be achieved by any means necessary — but they were so few and far between that it mattered little.

More reporters grumbling about nasty treatment from White House.  You can tell the New York Post is a right-leaning paper from the fact that Maureen Callahan didn't include the standard "I'm sure the president would disapprove if he knew!" disclaimer that no one actually believes.  Incidentally, how many anecdotes about persistent abusiveness from the White House towards reporters will it take before the Lightbringer no longer gets the benefit of the doubt about his supposed ignorance?

More Reporters Step Forward to Discuss Obama White House's Petty Treatment of Press.  An article in Monday's [3/4/2013] U.S. News & World Report by Ken Walsh, a veteran journalist who covered five presidencies, notes a growing "unhealthy antagonism ... between the West Wing and the mainstream media."  If the assessment is accurate, it could mean that the press, after four years of mindless obeisance to this administration, is finally ready to provide frank coverage, warts and all.

Obama Visits Wounded Troops — With Photographer.  President Obama arrived with his personal photographer earlier today at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland to visit wounded troops.

Beat the Press.  A brief recap:  After the Washington Post ran a Woodward op-ed in which he claimed that the administration was "moving the goalposts" on the eve of the potential sequester, the veteran journalist went on to assert that economic adviser Gene Sperling said, in an e-mail, "I think you will regret staking out this claim."  While Woodward spent a lot of the week on cable news going back and forth on whether that was a threat, few reporters, if any, asked why a high-level administration official spent so much time [...] attempting to control an opinion expressed in a newspaper.

Does President Obama Know When To Say When?  Doesn't the president get enough attention?  The president is always the star of the show.  When just about any major event occurs — whether it's a downturn in the unemployment rate, a natural disaster or some crisis overseas — much of the news media ask how it's going to play out for the president, the central actor in our national drama.  But then there are additional moments when the president injects himself into non-news contexts.

Biden Press Office Apologizes for Forcing Reporter to Delete Photo.  Just imagine if VP Cheney's office had accosted a reporter at public event and demanded that a photo be deleted from the reporter's camera.  It would be the lead story on every MSM outlet, offered as proof of the rising tide of fascism.  Yet such an incident happened last week with VP Biden, and virtually no mention of it can be found in the mainstream media.

Media refuse to interrogate Obama on his chicanery.  [Scroll down]  Why, after knowing the al-Qaida leader's whereabouts for eight or nine months, did Obama suddenly order a strike on May 2, 2011? [...] [T]he death of bin Laden erased the birth certificate issue from the news, where, thanks to Donald Trump and author Jerome Corsi, it actually was commanding new levels of scrutiny that had prompted the White House to release its online document at a press conference on April 27, 2011.  A few days later, boom — bin Laden was dead.  Wasn't that a little bit interesting?

White House Scrubs First Daughters Ski Trip Report.  A local news affiliate in Idaho reported that the First Daughters, Sasha and Malia Obama, are on a Spring Break ski trip in Sun Valley, Idaho.  The story quickly spread across the Internet when picked up by the highly trafficked Drudge Report website.  But hours later, the story disappeared from the KMVT website without an update or correction.  Breitbart News confirmed that the White House requested that the post be removed.

Obama's nightmare of a second term.  There is a lot of talk these days about "same sex marriage," "gun control," "voter ID," et al.  We are not hearing a lot about jobs, GDP growth or any of those complicated foreign policy problems that could just overwhelm President Obama's time in the next couple of years.  Call me cynical but I think that President Obama is engaging in a bit of distraction or keeping his base happy with a lot of the stuff that they want to hear.

President Obama's image machine:  Controlling the narrative while limiting media access.

Was the White House Bin Laden Photo Photoshopped?  While the details of the president's schedule are definitely a matter of personal security in real time, more than a year later, the right of the Legislature to exercise its checks-and-balances duties is paramount.  If Obama was on the golf course when he should have been in the Situation Room, and he lied to us about his whereabouts, the American people have a right to know.

J-O-B-S.  [It was Vice President Biden's] job and the president's to create a climate for job expansion, and they failed.  The evidence is now overwhelming:  they have created the worst employment climate in decades. [...] With so many out of work, the administration safely counts on a feckless media and an equally feckless opposition to be distracted by issues like gay marriage, immigration, and guns.

Protesters greet Obama on S.F.'s Billionaires' Row.  [Scroll down]  I loitered around the media vans and chatted up some of the technicians, who willingly dished all the gossip.  They said that all afternoon there had been caterers going in and out of the house at 3030 Pacific, and gardeners sprucing up the front, and this lured even more media to the block.  But suddenly, about an hour before I showed up, the preparations had abruptly stopped, and word came in that the entire operation had been a ruse to trick media to set up camp in front of the wrong location.  Turns out that Tom Steyer and Kat Taylor own another house a couple miles away in the Seacliff neighborhood which was the actual secret location of the cocktail reception.  Sneaky!

Obama To America: Have I Mentioned Gun Control?  In the wake of dismal news on jobs, the president is going all-out to fix the public's mind on something else — assault rifles, background checks and a sputtering Senate bill.  Barack Obama knows the value of a sideshow, and right now he's giving the country a big, splashy one.

Obama flying in Newtown human props for anti-gun speech.  Barack Obama knows full well that when it comes to using facts to argue for gun-grabbing laws, he doesn't have a leg to stand on.  Cue the human props!  After delivering an anti-gun speech in Hartford, Conn., later today [4/8/2013], Obama will fly 11 families of slain Sandy Hook children to D.C.

Obama's National-Security Fraud.  The Times Square non-attack is quite interesting.  The specter of it, projected in the immediate wake of the Marathon murders and maimings, is horrific ... so horrific that the government, in leaking this tidbit from its botched interrogation of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, knew that news media were certain to lead their broadcasts with it.  The press would never wonder why they, and thus we, were being told about it.  But why were they told?  Remember, the Times Square bombing not only never happened, it never came close to happening.

Chuck Todd: Obama 'Hates' 'Internet Media and Social Media'.  NBC's Chuck Todd told an inconvenient truth about Barack Obama on Sunday's [4/28/2013] Meet the Press.

Fluff Stories Conveniently Distract from the Government Failures Around Us.  This president can't get squat done about North Korea or Syria, and so he doesn't want us to focus on those far-off lands.  His policies have done diddlysquat for most of the long-term unemployed.  He's not interested in throwing people off public assistance, even when they don't deserve it, and he wants to insist that every terror attack is a one-time occurrence, instead of connected bits of an international ideological movement dedicated to killing Americans.  Obamacare's a mess, and he's hoping you don't notice.  The debt continues to increase, even with the alleged horrors of sequestration.

White House holds 'deep background' Benghazi briefing.  The White House held a "deep background" briefing with reporters on Friday afternoon to discuss recent revelations about the Benghazi investigation, sources familiar with the meeting tell Politico.  The meeting was conducted on "deep background," according to White House spokesman Josh Earnest, but sources told Politico that the existence of the meeting was "off the record." [...] Deep background means that the info presented by the briefers can be used in reporting but the briefers can't be quoted.

WH Holds Off-the-Record Benghazi Briefing for Hand-Picked Reporters.  Behold, the Obama/Media establishment literally coordinating behind closed doors on a story the White House keeps insisting is over.

Most transparent administration ever holds off-the-record briefing.  The most transparent administration in history appears to be circling its wagons.

The Benghazi deception.  Like a levy that has been suspiciously breached, the informational flood created by these news events is without recent precedent.  The timing of this flood is of particularly critical importance.  The headlines are diverting our attention away from a critical window of investigative value relating to Benghazi.  Could it be that we're seeing a form of force majeure being implemented to overwhelm and distract us from something far more important to truth seekers and consequently, much more lethal to Obama's second term?  Perhaps the Cloward-Piven strategy adapted and modified for the modern news cycles of today?

Fox News Reporter James Rosen's Private Emails Given To Justice Dept. By Google.  As a result of Fox News Channel's State Department reporter James Rosen's 2009 investigation into the government's response to North Korea's repeated provocations, it was reported on Monday [5/20/2013] that the Department of Justice tracked Rosen's movements as well as subpoenaed telephone and email records.  According to the DoJ's subpoena, Google surrendered Rosen's emails, who is described as "an aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator," to the government.

Just to be sure nobody talked to the press...
IRS Scandal: Armed Police 'Escort' Reporters Through Cincinnati Office.  Monday afternoon [5/20/2013], ABC News released a chilling report that details what journalists have faced while trying to get some answers from the Cincinnati IRS office, which is where a majority of the Tea Party targeting took place.  According to ABC, an "armed uniform police officer with the Federal Protective Service" "escorted" reporters through the public building.  ABC says if the intent wasn't to "scare off" employees who might talk, "it was the effect."

For Barack Obama, speech isn't free when it criticizes him.  [Scroll down]  Finally, the administration secretly tracked the phone calls of the Associated Press to root out who leaked the report of a drone strike.  Then the CIA told AP to hold off on the story so that Obama could announce it first.  This has a chilling affect on journalists.  But it's also the latest salvo in the Obama administration's war on whistleblowers.

How much news has the Obama administration successfully suppressed?  During his first term, liberal journalists often remarked at how "scandal free" the administration was, despite Solyndra, Fast and Furious and other revelations.  But maybe what really happened is that the administration's concerted effort to suppress the reporting of news was actually quite successful.

Chuck Todd: This is "Absolutely Chilling".  Reporters rely on confidentiality to do their jobs.  No confidentiality — then no scoops, no information the government doesn't want you to have, no accountability.  Once people think — and the damage has already been done here — that their phone call with you could end up in a government database, they will not be talking to you.  That's one reason the press came up with so few scoops in, say, the Soviet Union.

KMOV's Larry Connors Told to Shut Up.  Bullying — official, unofficial, or just plain illegal — of reporters is the norm for this administration.

Pitfalls of Obama's Current Political "Perfect Storm".  Americans should remember how successfully Hillary Clinton was able to generate a "scandal overload" and by constantly changing the subject, managed to protect the thoroughly compromised administration of her husband, Bill Clinton, from any repercussions for his malfeasance and innumerable violations of the law.

Keyword:  cahoots
Liberal Columnists Quietly Gather at White House.  NPR's Ari Shapiro posted an interesting Tweet on May 21.  He discovered that a cadre of well-known lefty columnists and journalists visited the White House together, three of whom he mentioned by name.

Barack Obama's long history of scandals — and escapes.  The standard rule for handling bad news in politics is to get it all out at once.  Take your hits for a news cycle, two or three.  And then try to move on.  The conventional wisdom has been that the worst thing to do is allow the bad news to dribble out, poison drop by poison drop, for days, weeks, even months.  Yet that is precisely what Barack Obama has done — and continues to do in his current epidemic of embarrassments — over a decade of controversies and scandals.  The amazing thing is, so far, it's worked like a charm.  So, why should he change?

Obama's Imbroglios.  Where are we now in this morass of Obama Administration scandals? [...] We have one massive cloud of confusion, and that is exactly what this embattled Administration wants, confusion.

JournoList's IRS Angle Begins to Gel.  The synchronicity is striking.  It's also an indication of just how worried the White House is, and how it intends to contain the scandal.  First, get reliably friendly bloggers and columnists on board with a story that focuses attention away from the White House.  Then, isolate and target someone who has already become a central figure in the scandal and, more importantly, who does not work directly for the White House.

Obama Surprises Reporters With Shock Off-The-Record Session, According To Report.  President Barack Obama held an off-the-record meeting with a select group of reporters on Tuesday [6/11/2012] in an effort to repair some of the damage done to his administration's relationship with political journalists in the wake of his Justice Department's sweeping subpoenas of communications records of AP and Fox News reporters.  According to a report in BuzzFeed, one New York Times reporter "would have reconsidered whether to attend" had he known Obama would be in on the meeting.

The Editor says...
Mr. Obama expects reporters to be awestruck, and in most cases, they are.

Washington Post: Family Relations Between Media, Obama Officials Does Not Affect Coverage.  Let's start by going through the Post's article to create a list of journalists married to or closely related to officials within the Obama administration.  The size and scope of this is bad enough.  But what is most troubling is how high up this incest occurs in the worlds of both the media and the Obama administration.

Wag the Syrian Dog.  "Wag the Dog" is a political strategy in which a national leader starts a military operation to divert negative attention away from himself. [...] With embattled President Barack Obama facing a scandal about electronic spying on the private lives of almost every voter in America, it should not be surprising that he would make "a decision to provide lethal assistance," including weapons, ammunition, and air support, to the Syrian rebels.  Using wag the dog might have worked in the past, but the mushrooming privacy scandal seems destined to grow.

More DHS insider from DC.  [Scroll down]  "The intimidation factor is huge if a media contact is outside of a small circle of 'vetted' journalists who are completely loyal to Obama and his agenda.  If you are not part of that inner circle, you are a target, it's that simple.  You are seeing the formation of a state-run media and an administration that will intimidate, punish or prosecute anyone considered unfriendly to the Obama camp from the inside and the outside. [..."]

'Carbon Pollution' and Wealth Redistribution.  No crisis should go to waste, an eternal truth highlighted in bold by a purported climate change apocalypse that is now the target of actions newly proposed by President Obama.  This so-called "crisis" will flood not various coastlines, but instead the front pages, replacing other, less flattering political headlines for the administration.

Obama's Crisis of Competence.  At a time when trust in government is already at an all-time low, the events of this past week illustrate the limits of this president's power.  The White House seems more comfortable stage-managing the news than dealing with the uncomfortable crises that inevitably crop up.

The White House pushed dirt on Darrell Issa, book says.  In the summer of 2010, with Republicans poised to take over the House and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) in line to lead the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the White House started urging reporters to write negative stories about the congressman's past, a new book says.  New York Times reporter Mark Leibovich describes what he says were the anti-Issa efforts in "This Town," a condemnation of Washington self-obsession and self-promotion, a copy of which was obtained by the Washington Post.

White House holds Obamacare background briefing with liberal reporters.  The White House held a background briefing Friday [7/12/2013] to discuss Obamacare implementation with a handful of journalists from liberal and progressive outlets.

In Wake of Zimmerman Verdict, Obama Makes Extensive Statement on Race in America.  The White House's original plan — for Mr. Obama to address the verdict in brief interviews on Tuesday with four Spanish-language television networks — was foiled when none of them asked about it.  Instead, he appeared in the White House briefing room with no advance warning and little of the orchestration that usually accompanies presidential speeches.

The Real Reason For Obama's Sudden Press Shyness.  Unlike other recent two-term presidents, Obama has had fewer day-in, day-out interactions with the Beltway press, allowing him to dodge hard questions about issues of the day.  When he gives interviews, it's to select, friendly outlets that lob him one softball after another.

President Adopts Catchphrase to Describe Proposed Recipe for Economic Revival.  President Obama says prosperity does not trickle down, and a rising tide does not necessarily lift all boats.  The conservative policies predicated on those ideas, he maintains, amount to a you're-on-your-own economics, when the country really needs a we're-in-this-together approach:  in short, prosperity needs to come from the "middle out" rather than the top down.

The Other Benghazi Scandal: Journalists Worry Covering The Attack Threatens White House Access.  Last week, CNN aired two striking reports revealing that the Central Intelligence Agency had a large number of agents on the ground on the night of the attack and that a suspect in the attack has never been interviewed by investigators.  Following these revelatory reports, which some in President Barack Obama's administration believe represent a political threat, some CNN reporters now fear for their access to the White House.  They are not alone.

"It has been my experience that whenever a leader — whether elected, anointed or media-appointed — does not want you to see something, that's probably the time when you should go out of your way to see it."

— Clarence Page    

Editor fired for anti-Obama headline says bosses responded to pressure.  A Tennessee newspaper editor who was fired for a headline critical of President Obama says his bosses bowed to pressure from the president's supporters, claiming he wouldn't have been canned if he had said the same of former President George W. Bush.  Drew Johnson's editorial, titled "Take your jobs plan and shove it, Mr. President:  Your policies have harmed Chattanooga enough," went viral and drew national attention earlier this week when Obama visited the city.

Another journalist fired for sassing Obama.  As you may recall, KMOV reporter Larry Conners was fired last May after making national headlines for actually asking President Barack Obama some tough questions.  Conners then speculated that his insolence might've had something to do with his subsequent IRS audit, and KMOV canned him.  Now another journo is out of work after crossing Obama.

Newspaper Editor Fired Over 'Shove It' Obama Headline.  Drew Johnson, the editorial page editor of the Chattanooga Times Free Press was fired after 14 months on the job for publishing an editorial with a headline that read:  "Take your jobs plan and shove it, Mr. President."  The editorial ran Tuesday, the same day Obama visited Chattanooga.

Did [the] White House Have Something To Do With Chattanooga Editor's Firing?  A Tennessee newspaper fired an editor over a hard-hitting editorial denouncing President Obama's jobs plan on the very day the president came to town to tout it.  This has the odor of White House revanchism.

Terror Threat Intelligence Not New.  The timing of the administration's announced closure of numerous U.S. embassies in the Middle East has raised concerns among some U.S. officials that the Obama administration is politicizing intelligence to distract attention from the Benghazi and other scandals.  "Why is this coming out now?" asked one official with access to terrorist threat data.  "Is the administration trying to suck up news coverage with the embassy threats to distract attention from what the CIA was doing in Benghazi?"

Obama wags the dog:
Al-Qaida Plot Distraction Is Too Well-Timed For Obama.  For one thing, if we're on the eve of a possible "9/11 junior," what on earth is the president of the U.S. doing going on the Tonight Show for the umpteenth time?  Why is funny man Jay Leno the one who gets to ask Obama about al-Qaida, but he's too busy for queries without punch lines from the Washington press corps?

The suspicious leaks behind the terrorism alert.  The number of people who would be cleared to possess the level of detail that identified a particular conference call as the relevant SIGINT activity is tiny.  It is one thing to say broadly that U.S. officials overheard "discussions," because someone planning an attack probably discusses it in some way many times.  Even then, though, you could imagine a mad scramble by jihadists for new communication safe zones.  There are two reasons why the government would tolerate this type of leak. [...]

Why Obama's 'Tonight Show' chat was new low for mainstream media.  Mr. Obama is no stranger to late night television.  Since his first run for president in 2008, he has visited a variety of venues — including daytime programs like "The View" and "The Ellen Degeneres Show" — to shape his personal political brand as accessible, fun, and hip, while also using these shows to reach out to key voting demographics.  But his remarks Tuesday night to Mr. Leno — during his sixth appearance on the show — seemed to reflect a deliberate effort to avoid direct dialogue with the mainstream media on two topics at the forefront of the public discussion.

Benghazi and the Banality of Evil.  Months late, CNN has gotten around to "breaking" a story that might help to complete the disturbing puzzle for the mainstream public, namely the allegation that Benghazi was the hub of a CIA weapons-running operation.  Within hours, this was washed from the headlines by the "chatter" indicating an imminent terror plot that required the United States to close numerous diplomatic facilities.

Sasha and Malia join the Obamas on Martha's Vineyard.  This afternoon, The White House issued a short statement saying President and Michelle Obama's two children, Sasha and Malia, arrived on Martha's Vineyard today to spend the rest of the week with their parents vacationing on the Island.  The White House closely guards the privacy of the two children, and did not release any information about where they spent the first part of the week.

WH Tried to Interfere with WaPo's NSA Story.  The Washington Post's article detailing the fourth amendment abuses by the NSA got some push back from the administration who attempted to "edit" the article before publication.  The internal audit referenced in the article was obtained by the WaPo from Edward Snowden.  The details of the audit indicated repeated and growing privacy violations by the NSA, violations which included obtaining thousands of American citizen's communications records and using methods of information collection that were later deemed unconstitutional by a court.

The NSA leaks ended the power of Obama officials to ration access.  No self-respecting journalist believes what they say.
The White House credibility deficit.  In his address about Egypt's military coup — or whatever bowdlerizing euphemism is permitted this week in Washington — Obama condemned the notion that "security trumps individual freedom."  Really?  After his press conference announcing an oversight commission for the NSA, it emerged that the NSA's truth-challenged director of national intelligence, James Clapper, would apparently oversee the oversight.  The White House had to explain the joke, and then said Clapper would merely facilitate. [...] That is the punchline of the Snowden affair:  when we can't trust what government tells us, we come to trust those whom government doesn't trust.  Thus, we no longer necessarily care what the official line is and who delivers it.

In classified cyberwar against Iran, trail of Stuxnet leak leads to White House.  The Obama administration provided a New York Times reporter exclusive access to a range of high-level national security officials for a book that divulged highly classified information on a U.S. cyberwar on Iran's nuclear program, internal State Department emails show.

Presidential Pets Get The Air Support Benghazi Didn't.  The breaking news on Monday [8/19/2013] was not a new revelation about the National Security Agency, the IRS, Benghazi, Fast and Furious, or the pending collapse of ObamaCare.  It was that President Obama and his family have adopted a companion for first dog Bo.  The new presidential pet is called Sunny, a name obviously not picked because it reflects the future of America under this administration.

Birtherism's Sudden Respectability.  Funny how all these outlets just started asking these same questions around the same time, huh?  I mean, of all the things going on in politics these days... ObamaCare collapsing, Egypt on fire, and of course amnesty in the offing, why the most important question on no one's mind, other than hyper-partisan reporter's, is, "Hey, is Ted Cruz eligible to be President?"

Obama's Half-Assad War.  In Obama's 2002 speech against the Iraq war, he scoffed at "armchair weekend warriors" who pursue "dumb" and "rash" interventions. [...] In his 2002 speech, Obama said that "petty dictators" don't justify military intervention, that Saddam Hussein posed no "imminent threat" to the U.S., that war would divert attention from domestic problems, and that a poorly conceived war would "fan the flames" of the Middle East and make a bad situation worse.  Substitute "Syria" for "Iraq" in the speech and one has a decent rejoinder to his Saturday announcement:  Assad is a petty dictator; he hasn't attacked the U.S.; this is a wag-the-dog diversion by a floundering president; the lack of any coherent strategy is sure to destabilize Syria and boost Islamic radicals.

The Editor says...
The turmoil over whether or not to bomb Syria is being cooked up for the purpose of getting scandals off the TV screens and off the front pages of America's newspapers.  The scandals that are displaced by this method include Benghazi, the NSA spying on Americans, the use of the IRS as a weapon against Obama's political enemies, Fast and Furious, Solyndra, the Keystone pipeline, the Obama family's numerous expensive junkets and unmerited vacations, a nationwide rash of race riots, Obama's undeniable incompetence and dishonesty, the war on coal, amnesty for illegal aliens, gun control, the politicized Department of Justice, millions of people on food stamps and "disability" because they're too lazy to work, and chronic unemployment and under-employment that should have precluded Obama's second term.

Senate Panel OKs Measure Defining a Journalist.  A Senate panel on Thursday approved a measure defining a journalist, which had been an obstacle to broader media shield legislation designed to protect reporters and the news media from having to reveal their sources.

There Ought To Be No Law.  As I've written elsewhere, under the guise of "protection," the Permanent Bipartisan Fusion Party is moving toward its real goal of licensing journalists and creating an American version of Britain's Official Secrets Act.  The Senate bill has nothing to do with protecting journalists, and everything to do with the Government Class protecting itself from those who would expose its activities.  Having successfully co-opted what used to be the national media — so much so that there is now a veritable revolving door between Washington and old-media institutions — Congress now seeks to shut down via exclusion all those who do not toe the party line.

Michelle Obama's water torture.  Just when you thought the Nanny State couldn't get anymore drunk with patronizing power over people, along comes Michelle Obama with a most urgent plea: Make sure you drink water!  Who knew?!  Apparently we now need the government to tell us to do the most basic of things. [...] It would not surprise me to see the First Lady begin to offer advice on how to dress ourselves.

Michelle Obama Launches Courageous New Program Urging People To Drink Water.  If there's one thing a country facing trillions of dollars in debt needs, it's a taxpayer funded campaign reminding people to drink water.

The Editor says...
The campaign to get us all to drink more water is just another shiny object to wave around, in an effort to displace Barack H. Obama's many scandals from the front-page headlines.

Exiting the Solar System and Fulfilling a Dream.  By today's standards, the spacecraft's technology is laughable:  it carries an 8-track tape recorder and computers with one-240,000th the memory of a low-end iPhone.  When it left Earth 36 years ago, it was designed as a four-year mission to Saturn, and everything after that was gravy.

The Editor says...
This event happened about a year before it was announced.  I suspect NASA is just now announcing it to push Obama's many scandals off the front page of the local newspapers.  In the next few weeks, look for other wonderful discoveries to be announced by various government agencies.  Don't listen to the American mainstream "news" media without a great deal of skepticism.

Is there a con man in the Oval Office?  The media headlines should be about the NSA scandal aimed at violating the civil rights and invading the privacy of every American citizen.  But with Syria hogging the media spotlight, we have all forgotten that Obama listens to every phone call, watches every email.  Big Brother rules our lives.  Obama has turned out to be worse than Bush when it comes to civil liberties, but with Syria in the headlines, we don't hear a word about the NSA scandal anymore.

55 percent of Obama's Twitter followers are fake.  An incredibly high percentage of President Obama's Twitter followers are fake, while the opposite is true for Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.  According to the Twitter analytics application, Status People, 55 percent of President Obama's 36,802,378 Twitter followers — or approximately 20,240,107 followers — are fake.  A 'fake follower,' according to Status People, is a spam account following the user.

More than 19.5 million online fans don't really exist.
Barack Obama is political king of the fake Twitter followers.  Among influential U.S. political tweeters, President Barack Obama is the undisputed king of the fake followers.  A MailOnline analysis ranks his sizable Twitter following as the most deceptive total among the 21 most influential accounts run by American politicians:  More than 19.5 million of his 36.9 million Twitter followers are accounts that don't correspond to real people.  The four phoniest accounts in the sample, which included Democratic and Republican Party leaders in Washington, D.C., were those belonging to President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, first lady Michelle Obama and the White House communications shop.

Jobs report could be delayed by federal government shutdown.  The latest report on job creation and the unemployment rate, set to be released Friday, could be delayed if the federal government shuts down this week, the Labor Department said.  "All survey and other program operations will cease and the public website will not be updated," Erica L. Groshen, commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, said in a Sept. 10 memo that is part of the department's contingency plan for a shutdown.

The Editor says...
You can bet that if the unemployment numbers were really good, they would find a way to publish them.

Does McAuliffe Even Understand the EPA's New Rules for Coal Plants?  Lachlan Markay put together this map of where the country's major coal mines are, and where the EPA's "listening sessions" about the rules new were held.  As you'll notice, the sites of the mines and the "listening sessions" weren't near each other.  If you wanted to ensure that no one who actually works in mining weighed in at these "listening sessions," this is pretty much how you would do it.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden on Washington walkabout during shutdown.  Barack Obama strolled out of the White House in an unusual walkabout with Joe Biden, declaring "nobody is winning" from the US government shutdown.  The photo-op was a clear attempt to clean up after a White House misstep in which a senior aide was quoted as saying the administration did not care how long the shutdown lasts because it feels it is beating up on Republicans.

What a coincidence: Single ObamaCare success story is [an] OFA volunteer.  Allahpundit told the story yesterday about how our intrepid national media searched high and low in this nation of 330 million people to find someone, anyone who could figure out how to actually buy coverage through the ObamaCare exchanges.  After putting out an SOS, the Washington Post finally found Chad Henderson, and so did the Wall Street Journal, Chattanooga Times/Free Press, the Huffington Post, and even "POLITICO!", as Henderson himself announced later yesterday [10/3/2013].

ATF tries to block Fast and Furious whistle-blower from publishing book.  The ATF agent who blew the whistle on Operation Fast and Furious has been denied permission to write a book on the botched anti-gun trafficking sting "because it would have a negative impact on morale," according to the very agency responsible for the scandal.  After first trying to stop the operation internally, ATF Agent John Dodson went to Congress and eventually the media following the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010.

Why Now? U.S. Nabs Top Al-Qaeda Suspect Known for Years.  This past weekend, U.S. Delta forces converged on a man parking his car in broad daylight in the middle of Tripoli, Libya and nabbed a senior al-Qaeda operative who went by the nom du guerre Abu Anas al-Libi. [...] Why al-Libi hadn't been put away much earlier by either the U.S. or our British allies takes this story deep into international intrigue and a long history of Western intelligence associations with known al-Qa'eda jihadis.

Establishment Conservative Journalists Meet Off-the-Record with Obama at White House.  This is hardly the first time Obama has held select, politically-motivated off-the-record sessions. [...] Obama's cozy relationship with select members of the press has created abiding unhappiness among many members of the press corps, who feel that the president has created a stratified system with favored and unfavored journalists.

Fascism: Reporters Living in Fear of Obama Administration.  We still have no answers why the Obama "Justice" Department targeted James Rosen of Fox News or tapped the phone lines of the Associated Press.  And clearly the media is too afraid to speak up. [...] If the media had any dignity they'd boycott this administration and skip the daily Jay Carney briefings.

Subservient reporters will roll over and bark, if that's what Obama wants.
Barack Obama Compliments Softball Questions He Gets: 'That's a Great Example'.  One way to know if a journalist is asking a softball question is if the President of the United States compliments the reporter after he or she asks it.

Obama Clings To Climate Change Science That Now Looks Very Wrong.  Flying under the media radar largely due to the ongoing Syrian crisis and other news, President Obama has in the past two weeks signed three multinational climate agreements aimed at limiting greenhouse gasses [sic] and dealing with rising sea levels.  Meanwhile, elsewhere around the world, other countries are backing away from climate commitments.

The Editor says...
Maybe that's why there was a "Syrian crisis."  It allowed Obama to get some things done without news media attention.

Media's Off-the-Record Meetings with the President Really Need to Stop.  Earlier this year, President Obama privately sat down with the primetime lineup of MSNBC to talk about selling his tax plan to the American people.  Those journalists, or pundits, or hosts, or personalities, or however [...] we define those who host cable news shows these days, weren't there for an interview, they were there for instructions.

Report: Obama Brings Chilling Effect on Journalism.  The U.S. government's aggressive prosecution of leaks and efforts to control information are having a chilling effect on journalists and government whistle-blowers, according to a report released Thursday [10/10/2013] on U.S. press freedoms under the Obama administration.

Here's One Thing the Shutdown Has Not Shut Down.  The president's personal videographer is still at work at the White House, apparently classified as essential staff. [...] In the old days, there would be some outrage about the White House's releasing heavily edited in-house video of events to which the real press corps has been denied access.  But those were the old days.

Obama-controlled news operation is the true assault on the press.  The press has been marginalized as a source of hard news not just by the aggressive leaks, but by Obama's alternative, completely controlled news operation.  The press needs the bones of information thrown them by Obama, much more than Obama needs the press.

Under Obama, Journalism Is an Inside Game.  Yesterday the Committee to Protect Journalism released a report on the Obama administration and the press. [...] One of the more disturbing points this report raises is that while the name of the game might be "free and open," there is nevertheless a large quantity of officially sanctioned communication only.

Journalists: Obama the Worst Since Nixon.  The Obama administration's hostility toward media and efforts to crack down on whistleblowers and leakers has created "a tremendous chilling effect" on substantive reporting, the Committee to Protect Journalists and veteran reporters said Thursday [10/17/2013].  The CPJ issued last week a scathing report, written by former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie, Jr., on the effects of the Obama administration's efforts to control press coverage, burnish its image, and thwart unauthorized leaks.

Obama catches pregnant woman as she faints behind him during healthcare speech.  President Barack Obama caught a pregnant woman who began to faint during his speech about healthcare reforms today and then joked:  'That's what happens when I talk too long.'

The Editor says...
There are those who say the fainting episode was scripted, and was an attempt to inject an emotional element and spice up an otherwise mundane and predictable speech.  Accusations of that sort would be quickly dismissed were it not for Mr. Obama's long history of manipulating the news media, and a lifetime of disingenuousness.

The high cost of ObamaCare deception.  President Obama's Rose Garden press conference on the ObamaCare disaster featured a group of 13 human props, lined up on stage behind him to put a face on the alleged virtues of his health care scheme.  It turns out none of them had actually purchased an ObamaCare insurance plan, and only three of them had even completed the application process.  What a perfect summary of the disastrous incompetence and fundamental dishonesty of Barack Obama's "signature achievement!"

Emails: White House, State Department coordinated with journalist on national security leaks.  White House and State Department officials cooperated extensively on background with a New York Times journalist during the period that he broke confidential national security information in a series of leaks that prompted outrage from lawmakers, according to unearthed 2011 and 2012 emails.  The nonprofit organization Freedom Watch, which obtained the internal State Department emails through a Freedom of Information Act request, believes that the Obama administration carried out the leaks to bolster a tough image for itself on Iran.

Feds ask Blue Cross Blue Shield in North Dakota not to release exchange numbers.  During a Monday forum in Fargo for people interested in signing up for coverage via the exchange, James Nichol of Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota told the crowd his company received the request from the federal government earlier Monday.  Nichol is a consumer sales manager for the company.  Still, a spokeswoman from Blue Cross Blue Shield says about 14 North Dakotans have signed up for coverage since the federal exchange went live Oct. 1.  That brings total statewide enrollment to 20 — less than one a day.

Obamacare Operator Fired After Taking Call From Hannity.  On the top of Thursday's broadcast of his radio show, Sean Hannity revealed Earline Davis, the Obamacare operator he called early in his Monday show, got fired.  Hannity quizzed her on how well the law is being received by applicants and she revealed no one liked it.  Hannity had Davis on his show today and revealed he will give her a year's salary of $26,000 and help her find a new job.

Why Was Obamacare Hotline Operator Fired, But Sebelius Still Has a Job?  Sean Hannity appeared on Fox & Friends Friday morning to discuss his pledge to help former Obamacare hotline operator Earline Davis because she was fired as a result of taking the radio host's call on Monday afternoon [10/21/2013].  Recounting the story of how Davis was fired one day after that fateful phone call, Hannity lamented that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is still gainfully employed.

Beckel: WH 'Bludgeoned' Me For Suggesting Obamacare Delay.  Bob Beckel, a liberal co-host of Fox News' The Five, said he received an angry phone call from the White House after suggesting on the air that the administration enact a six-month to one-year delay of Obamacare's individual mandate due to the problems afflicting the online exchanges.

CNN Anchor: Obama Administration Threatens Journalists Who Make Obama Look Bad.  Carol Costello says, the Obama Administration hates to get embarrassed and looks for ways to exert its influence to get reporters fired for actually doing their job!  During last night's CNN broadcast, Mrs. Costello admitted Barack Obama's media team has immense influence with mainstream news agencies.  She says if you make Obama look bad, you could lose your job.

Obama tells insurance companies to shut up, if they know what's good for them.  More thug tactics from a White House that is no stranger to them, as CNN reports insurance companies have been warned to dummy up about the ObamaCare disaster if they know what's good for them.  "What is going on is a behind-the-scenes attempt by the White House to at least keep insurers from publicly criticizing what is happening on this Affordable Care Act rollout," reports Andrew Griffin of CNN.  "Basically, if you speak out, if you are quoted, you're going to get a call from the White House, pressure to be quiet."

The Editor asks...
What does "pressure to be quiet" sound like?

AP editors: Obama relies on staged propaganda photos.  Editors of The Associated Press condemned the White House's refusal to give photojournalists real access to President Obama, who prefers to circulate press release-style pictures taken by his own paid photographers.  These official photographs are little more than propaganda, according to AP director of photography Santiago Lyon.  The AP has only been permitted to photograph the president alone in the Oval Office on two occasions — both in his first term — and has never been allowed to photograph the president with his staff in the office.

The Obama Facade Cracks at Last.  Only now — five years into his presidency — are we seeing some cracks in the protective shield surrounding President Obama, and then only after the abuse of reporters' privacy has been threatened.  Mainstream journalists have not scrutinized his controversial policies, nor have they held him accountable for questionable actions that have caused outrage among fair-minded critics and produced irreparable harm to the nation.  Some facts are irrefutable, but the president has, by and large, deflected all blame and few in the media have dared question his policies and actions.

In political messaging wars, White House deploys a Twitter army.  Besieged by unflattering stories about the launch of President Barack Obama's healthcare program, the White House saw a news report that it wanted to swiftly knock down. [...] White House officials quickly began firing off a barrage of tweets on Twitter, which has become one of the administration's most potent and relied-upon weapons in trying to shape public opinion and media reports.

Pro-Obamacare team trains reporters on covering Obamacare website problems.  Reporters with the Society of American Business Editors and Writers received "training" on how to cover Obamacare's rollout from a policy expert who works with President Obama's former health information technology adviser.  The Commonwealth Fund's Sara Collins claimed during the training that healthcare.gov's chronic dysfunctionality does not signify "deeper issues" with the law.

Group Tied to Obamacare 'Trains' Journalists on how to Spin Obamacare's failures.  Every dictator knows that if you want to stay in power, you absolutely must control the media.  Having a robust, honest, independent media is an important aspect of maintaining a government accountable to the people.  However, the Obama Regime has worked very hard over the years to gain a stranglehold on the media and it shows.

The U.S. is in crisis, not the White House.  Consider the non-apology apology about the Affordable Care Act that Barack Obama made earlier this week.  Remember the misleading information about Benghazi which is well over a year old and still unresolved.  Think about the proposition that "al Qaeda is dead and General Motors is alive."  Or how about "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.  Period!"  There are dozens more Obamaisms, but these are representative.  What if, cynically but hypothetically, the so-called "crisis in the White House" is a manufactured talking point to divert attention from real issues which are far more subversive?

POTUS Blames the Media, Scolds Press for Not Touting Obamacare Positives.  Without the tea party and Ted Cruz to use as a piñata, the President attacked the folks whom he once joked was "his base."

Journalists, Networks Decry Obama White House's 'Troubling Precedent' on Press Access.  On Thursday, CBS's Sharyl Attkisson reported on Twitter that the White House Correspondents Association, along with "dozens of associations & media outlets", sent a letter of protest to White House Press Secretary Jay Carney. Attkisson outlined in subsequent Tweets that the letter blasted the Obama administration for restricting the access of photojournalists at certain presidential events, "while releasing government photos and videos of the same events".

Obama's Image Machine: Monopolistic Propaganda Funded by You.  Obama's image-makers are taking advantage of new technologies that democratized the media, subverting independent news organizations that hold the president accountable.  A generation ago, a few mainstream media organizations held a monopoly on public information about the White House. Today, the White House itself is behaving monopolistic.

White House photogs seek more access.  Nearly 40 news outlets and organizations signed a letter Thursday [11/21/2013] urging the White House to relax its restrictions on news photographers when covering the president.  The group, including major wire services and TV networks, said the White House is replacing "photojournalism with visual press releases" by barring photographers from certain meetings at the White House, then releasing its own photos of the events through social media.

White House blocks access to Obama events, news groups say.  The nation's largest news organizations lodged a complaint Thursday [11/21/2013] against the White House for imposing unprecedented limitations on photojournalists covering President Barack Obama, which they say have harmed the public's ability to monitor its own government.  The organizations accuse the White House of banning photojournalists from covering Obama at some events, and then later releasing its own photos and videos of the same events.

Juan Williams Describes Journos' Meeting With Obama: White House in 'Full Fight Mode'.  "I met with other senior officials at the White House, I can tell you they are in full fight mode over the Affordable Healthcare Act right now," Williams said.  "What you hear from these senior officials is they're concerned about what happened with insurance companies; they wish the insurance companies hadn't sent out the cancellation notices; and if they had, that they had simply call them renewals.  They feel as if they had a major systems failure, a major management failure, and they're trying to get back on track."

The Editor says...
Juan Williams seems to be very careful not to utter the term Obamacare, probably because the new law and Obama are dragging each other down.  Mr. Williams evidently recognizes the importance of carefully selecting words:  He believes that if the government calls a perfectly good insurance policy "substandard," and the insurance companies call a cancellation a "renewal," the unfortunate person on the receiving end would be happier about it, and would not blame Barack H. Obama.  President Obama himself says he wants to rebrand and remarket Obamacare.  As usual, he is taking the wrong approach.  Solutions to major problems — especially those that have been caused by big government — require more than semantics.

Photographers Protest White House Restriction.  A mutiny has erupted among photographers who cover President Obama over what they say is the White House's increasing practice of excluding them from events involving the president and then releasing its own photos or video.  On Thursday, the White House Correspondents' Association and 37 news organizations submitted a letter to the press secretary, Jay Carney, protesting what photographers said amounted to the establishment of the White House's own Soviet-style news service, which gets privileged access to Mr. Obama at the expense of journalists who cover the president.

The Obama Administration and the Press.  U.S. President Barack Obama came into office pledging open government, but he has fallen short of his promise.  Journalists and transparency advocates say the White House curbs routine disclosure of information and deploys its own media to evade scrutiny by the press.  Aggressive prosecution of leakers of classified information and broad electronic surveillance programs deter government sources from speaking to journalists. [...] "This is the most closed, control freak administration I've ever covered," said David E. Sanger, veteran chief Washington correspondent of The New York Times.

Newsroom Protests Against White House Spread.  USA Today on Monday [11/25/2013] joined a growing list of news agencies boycotting the use of official White House photography over what it says is an unprecedented lack of access to the president.  USA Today Deputy Director of Multimedia Andrew Scott said in a memo to staff the publication will not use "handout photos originating from the White House Press Office, except in very extraordinary circumstances."  USA Today is now one of more than 35 news agencies refusing to use White House photography.

Obama's photo policy smacks of propaganda.  The White House has increasingly excluded news photographers from Obama's official events and is instead releasing images taken by in-house photographers, who are government employees.  These photos often appear online and in newspapers, even though they lack the same standards of authenticity that govern those taken by photojournalists.

Obama Allegedly Wrote 'Tea Baggers' in Handwritten Letter.  According to a report in The New York Post, President Barack Obama allegedly responded to a letter he received from a Texas school teacher who was concerned about the negative impact the Affordable Care Act may have on the president's political position by referring to conservative Americans as "tea baggers."  "This bill has caused such a divisive, derisive and toxic environment," wrote Thomas Ritter, a fifth-grade teacher at Sally B. Elliott Elementary in Irving, Texas.  "The reality is that any citizen that disagrees with your administration is targeted and ridiculed."

McClatchy, USA Today Refuse to Publish White House Photos.  It only took five years for the American media to get tired of President Obama's spoon-fed propaganda — well, at least one aspect of it.  Earlier this month, 38 news organizations, including the Associated Press, ABC News, The Washington Post, and Reuters demanded more photojournalist access to the president.  The White House responded with what one reporter described as a middle finger.  Now some news organizations are responding by formalizing policies not to publish White House-distributed photographs.

Reporter Bob Franken Blasts Obama on MSNBC: 'Most Hostile' to Press 'in U.S. History'.  The segment began with Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank observing that a number of photojournalists have protested this White House's decision to block photographers from independent media outlets from getting the best shots in favor of White House-approved photographers.  He noted that this practice can be construed as an effort to attempt to manipulate public opinion.  "Let's use the 'P' word here:  it's propaganda," said syndicated columnist and former White House reporter Bob Franken.  "Every administration tries to manipulate the press, but this is the most hostile to the media that has been in United States history."

Obama's Picture-Perfect Propaganda.  It might seem like another day in Tea Party Land when a conservative columnist accuses President Barack Obama's White House of "airbrushing history" like the Stalin-era Soviet Union.  But the columnist isn't a conservative.  It's Dana Milbank of the liberal Washington Post complaining about what's happened to White House news photographers.  He's not alone.  A New York Times photographer has publicly compared Team Obama to the Soviet Tass news agency.

Bush Spends 90 Minutes with Reporters on Air Force One, Obama Avoids Them.  There's nothing like a communal flight with the current president of the United States and his predecessor to make the press miss the days of a communicative commander in chief. [...] The Obamas have stayed in their cabin for the flight, according to the White House pool report from the refueling stop in Senegal, while President Bush came to the press cabin twice for a total of about an hour and a half.

Obama's Orwellian Image Control.  Mr. Obama's administration — in hypocritical defiance of the principles of openness and transparency he campaigned on — has systematically tried to bypass the media by releasing a sanitized visual record of his activities through official photographs and videos, at the expense of independent journalistic access.  The White House-based press corps was prohibited from photographing Mr. Obama on his first day at work in January 2009.  Instead, a set of carefully vetted images was released.  Since then the press has been allowed to photograph him alone in the Oval Office only twice:  in 2009 and in 2010, both times when he was speaking on the phone.

This is how Mr. Obama pretends to be accessible:
Steve Harvey Interviews Obama, Avoids Politics.  Steve Harvey got the chance for a one-on-one interview the President of the United States this week, a rare opportunity for a journalist let alone a comedian.  Harvey made one item clear up front about his exclusive chat — he didn't ask President Barack Obama any political questions.

10 Forms of 2013 Media Malpractice.  [#10] Sit on important information if doing so helps the administration.  In November, the AP's Julie Pace reveled in the fact that she and her employer knew of secret negotiations between the U.S. and Iran a full eight months before they were publicly disclosed.  The wire service's claim that doing so involved doing the Obama administration no favors blew up in its face when another news organization acknowledged that it and AP "were asked to not publish til end of Iran talks."

Reporters Hit a White House Stone Wall.  All administrations have sought to control the information — the message — that reaches the public, but the Obama administration has gone to greater lengths than previous ones.  In particular, its public affairs offices (PAOs) have become obstacles to press access.  Writing in the Dec 17 edition of Editor & Publisher, the newspaper trade magazine, Jim Dickinson said, "Over two hours at the National Press Club a few months ago, the truth finally hit me.  Journalism has done it to itself, the 'it' being the surrender of our First Amendment-protected responsibility to tell the people what their government is really, actually doing — as opposed to what the government tells us it wants the people to know."

Scott Walker: Unemployment benefits, minimum wage push because Obama 'desperately' wants to avoid Obamacare.  Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker dismissed the White House's push to extend emergency unemployment benefits and raise the minimum wage Sunday morning, criticizing Democrats' all-out push for legislation as an effort to distract from the recent problems with the new health care law.  "They want to desperately talk about anything other than Obamacare," said Walker, a conservative Republican being mentioned as a potential 2016 presidential candidate, said on CNN's "State of the Union."

Greta: 'Obama Administration Tried Very Hard to Discourage Fox News From Reporting Benghazi'.  For well over a year, NewsBusters has been reporting how the Obama-loving media have done everything in their power to not only avoid covering the details surrounding the September 11, 2012, attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, but also assist the Administration in promoting its version of events.  On Thursday, Greta Van Susteren wrote at her blog, "After Benghazi on 9/11/2012, the Obama administration tried very hard to discourage Fox News Channel from reporting on it.  The effort was obstruction — pure and simple."

Cloward-Piven Strategy — How Barack Obama is Playing America.  Hitler's Propaganda Minister, Goebbels, affirmed:  "the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. ... It is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion."  Does mainstream media's "love affair" with this administration possibly fit this narrative?  Mainstream media goes whichever the wind blows in supporting or protecting the administration.

Dems Want Networks To Manipulate Climate Coverage Like BBC.  The mainstream media, long a house organ for Democrats, are about to come under pressure by Senate Democrats led by Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, who are gathering signatures from colleagues on a letter to the networks telling them they're ignoring global warming, according to a report in the National Journal.  They are seeking to impose sort of a climate change "fairness doctrine" designed to ignore inconvenient truths about climate researchers getting stuck in Antarctic ice that was supposed to have melted in favor of the gospel according to Al Gore.

Colorado firestorm: Administration bars scribes from public meeting.  The Obama administration's testy relationship with the press is nothing new for Washington, but it's now extended to Colorado and has touched off a firestorm after Interior Department officials booted local reporters from a public meeting earlier this week.  Journalists with Colorado's Craig Daily Press and at least two other media outlets were barred from a Tuesday question-and-answer session with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, despite the fact that members of the public were allowed to attend.

Holder: New media guidelines in weeks.  New guidelines on how the Justice Department can monitor the media will be published in the next coming weeks, Attorney General Eric Holder said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday [1/29/2014].  Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has been an advocate for media protections, noted that it has been more than six months since a report was given to President Barack Obama with proposed changes to the Department guidelines on criminal investigations that involve the news media.

Abramson: National security reporting 'effectively being criminalized' under Obama.  New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson said Thursday [1/30/2014] that national security reporting is "effectively being criminalized" under President Obama, citing his administration's aggressive pursuit of whistleblowers.  Speaking on a panel at Columbia University, Abramson said the crackdown "has had a profound effect on journalists who cover national security."

White House Soap Opera: Alleged Marital Discord between Obamas Breaks into Media.  Desperate to distract from the ongoing Obamacare disaster, alleged marital discord between Barack and Michelle Obama is being strategically leaked by White House insiders, and beginning to break into the mainstream media via familiar channels. [...] Low information voters (aka, the Obama base) will lap this up.

The FCC Plan To Police The Newsrooms.  The FCC has cooked up a plan to place "researchers" in U.S. newsrooms, supposedly to learn all about how editorial decisions are made.  Any questions as to why the U.S. is falling in the free press rankings?

Obama's clever campaign to constrict the flow of criticism.  [The MSM] has done much to earn widespread public distrust.  This stems from the inherent institutional and individual arrogance of its long-time monopoly over the information flow through broadcast networks and large daily newspapers.  And from its laser focus on conflict as "news" and its do-good social agendas that instinctively turn to government intervention instead of far more effective individual responsibility and action.  The traditional media's disconnection from its audience became even more starkly visible with the Internet's welcome explosion of information sources, many of them responsible.

Man-given rights and government gone wild.  Our formerly constitutional government, in the form of the Federal Communications Commission, has developed a plan to put observers in the nation's newsrooms in order to better understand "the process by which stories are selected."  Of course, they won't just "understand" the process; they will most assuredly and dangerously alter it, merely by the implied threat of their presence in the formerly sacrosanct newsroom.  Just ask anyone who ever worked for a newspaper in Soviet Russia or Hitler's Germany or even Chavez's Venezuela.

Failing Liberals Turn To Oppression To Hold On To Power.  The Federal Communications Commission just floated a trial balloon about going out to radio and television stations to evaluate reporters on how they cover the news.  There was a time when journalists' response to a government inquiry into how they did their job would be "Go to hell, you goose-stepping bureaucratic flunky."  Not anymore.  Now, their response is slavish submission to their progressive governmental dominatrix.  When supposedly independent, iconoclastic liberal journalists let themselves to be dominated by the feds, their safeword is "Hillary."  Liberalism has to muzzle the truth because it operates on lies.  It is built on lies, fueled by lies, and creates an empire of lies.

Obama Crackdown on Press Freedom Escalates.  Last week, Reporters Without Borders dropped America in the World Press Freedom Index 2014 from 33rd to 46th.  James Risen of The New York Times rightly explained, "I think 2013 will go down in history as the worst year for press freedom in the United States' modern history."  And he's right.  The violation of press freedoms has been egregious under this administration, even as the press fetes President Obama as an honest and effective commander-in-chief.

Is Obama trying to kill a free press?  The FCC is launching a new study, taking upon itself the task of deciding what news the public "needs" to hear, versus the news the public wants to hear.  The agency will conduct a "General Population Survey" that will "measure community members' actual and perceived critical information needs."  Got that?  What you think (perceive) you need to know is different from what the government says you need to know.  Next, the FCC will send monitors to newsrooms across the country who will ask questions regarding the "philosophy" of the newsroom, inquire about possible conflicts between reporters and their bosses, and even determine how much influence each individual has in deciding what to report.

More about the FCC.

Is Hollywood Plotting ObamaCare's Next Move?  Look out super heroes and villains, ObamaCare might be stealing the next plot line in upcoming blockbuster films.  Screen writers in New York City gathered Tuesday night [2/18/2014] to learn more about President Obama's health-care reform act in a forum hosted by the Writers Guild of America, East.  The WGA is a labor union representing thousands of screenwriters for television and film, as well as online media.

Don't believe mainstream media mistruths about firearms research.  Being against government funding of research is not the same as being against "science."  It is simply not credible to believe that the Obama administration can keep politics out the grant giving process.  It isn't just academics who will be subsidized, but academics who agree with the Obama administration.

The Media: Obama's Keeper.  No longer can Obama charm a nation with empty words, he has shown that he is simply unable to put politics aside.  With his signature legislation crashing and burning like the Hindenburg, and his poll numbers crumbling faster than the Chicago Cubs in June, he is once again diverting our attention by bombarding the news cycle with empty programs and longwinded speeches.  Deploying the same smoke and mirror tactics that he's been using since he began his career agitating communities long ago.  This weak and feckless president has decided to try and sell us on this Brother's Keeper program while he ignores more pressing items on his agenda.

WH transcript scrubs Obama's botched 'respect' misspelling.  The White House stenographer appears to have given President Obama a little too much "respect."  Introducing soul legend Aretha Franklin at a White House performance Thursday night, the president flubbed the spelling of her signature song.  "When Aretha first told us what R-S-P-E-C-T meant to her..." Obama said, prompting laughter from the crowd. [...] But anyone reading the official transcript of the event provided by the White House would have had no idea of the president's mistake.  In that version, the president correctly spells out the word.

R-S-P-E-C-T: Find out what it means for Obama.  The president evoked laughter in the East Room when he spelled Miss Franklin's song, "R-S-P-E-C-T."  To make matters worse, in the song itself, the Queen of Soul belts out the correct spelling.  Three pool reporters at the event heard the president misspell the word, and verified it on audio recordings.  But the White House's official transcript of the event portrayed Mr. Obama as spelling the word correctly.

'Suffocating pressure': Former ThinkProgress writer describes White House 'censorship'.  Zaid Jilani, a former blogger with the left-wing think tank Center for American Progress, explained this week how the Obama administration frequently tries to censor the progressive organization's content when it departs from the White House's agenda.  Jiliani was reacting to two on-air protests by journalists opposed to Russia's invasion of southern Ukraine.  The two worked for Russia Today (RT) — an English-speaking media outlet funded directly by Moscow — and felt their bosses were trying to censor their opinions.

2014 Strategy: Obama's Top 5 Distractions.  With Democratic 2014 Senate and House hopes receding faster than the rise of the tides under President Obama, the Obama administration and Democratic Party have decided to resort to their favorite page in the political playbook:  distraction and misdirection. [...] [I]f our brains are occupied with worries about the war on women, for example, we're less likely to be thinking about the horrors of Obamacare.

Turns out, what's settled on global warming is Americans' disbelief in Obama.  As part of his desperate political plot to distract the country with something — anything — other than ObamaCare's debacle, Benghazi, the IRS, NSA or his tardy, empty Ukraine policies, Barack Obama has been talking a lot about global warming.  Forget about the Nov. 4 midterm election, folks.  The world is burning up.  A crisis not to be wasted.  Obama calls it climate change before his audiences because after this endless winter of polar vortexes and record snowfalls and ice cover, the word 'warming' draws applause or chuckles, not his desired gasps.

Michelle Obama's China trip looks more like vacation than official business as she shuts out reporters.  First lady Michelle Obama will not take questions from reporters or give interviews during her tour of China that begins today [3/19/2014], and members of the press corps who usually follows the first family everywhere can't travel with her entourage.  And although she will make a few speeches with reporters in the room, the picture is largely one of an expensive, taxpayer-funded tourism exercise for Mrs. Obama, her two daughters, and her mother — not the official trip the White House has projected.

No Reporters on Michelle Obama's Trip to China.  First Lady Michelle Obama will be accompanied by her children and her mother on her trip to China, which begins today.  But she won't be accompanied by the press.  "Michelle Obama's trip to China starting on Wednesday will be nonpolitical, the White House says, a 'people-to-people exchange' emphasizing the importance that both nations place on education.  As if to underscore the point, no reporters are traveling with the first lady, and she does not plan to give interviews while there," reports the New York Times.

Dealing with Michelle Obama's press office is no cake walk.  Earlier this week, Dylan Byers, the media writer for Politico, detailed his dealings that day with Michelle Obama's press office and just how difficult it was to get his question answered.  "It's absolutely terrible," he wrote me by email.  The information Byers sought involved a NYT report that no reporters would be accompanying the first lady on her trip to China.  NYT's Nick Kristoff said the call was a bad one.  Byers wanted to know why the decision was made in the first place.  "A spokesperson for the First Lady responded to my inquiry but declared the response 'off the record,' meaning I wasn't allowed to use the information therein," he wrote in a post.

AP photographer hits White House: 'Once we lose access, we'll never get it back'.  The Associated Press has stepped up its attack on White House efforts to block coverage of events involving President Obama, warning that once access is cut, "we'll never get it back."  In the latest media charge that the White House has reneged on promises to be "transparent," two of AP's White House staff told a convention in Denver this week that the president's team often bars coverage of Obama events because they are "hypersensitive" about his image.

Press banned as first lady touts free speech.  First lady Michelle Obama told students that freedom of speech should be a universal right during her extravagant, no-press-allowed tour of China — a hypocritical move that will surely draw the ire of critics, according to an expert.  "That is troublesome.  That goes beyond hypocritical, and I think the American media and the international media has every right to call her and the Obama administration on that — that they permitted that to happen," said Tom Whalen, a political history professor at Boston University. [...] The first lady stopped at Peking University in Beijing yesterday [3/22/2014] during a weeklong trip that was billed as cultural rather than political.

WH Now Partnering With Amateur 'iReporters' on First Lady's China Trip.  The professional press corps has been frozen out of Michelle Obama's swing through China.  But the White House has partnered with CNN to bring in amateurs. Katie Hawkins-Gaar, a CNN editor, coordinated the effort to solicit and accumulate submissions from "iReporters" interested in asking questions about the "importance of students learning from one another's cultures," Mrs. Obama's stated emphasis for this trip.

Obama Taps Local TV Anchors to Send ACA Message.  It began during the weekend with a surprise email from the White House:  Six local TV anchors and camera crews from around the country discovered they'd been invited to interview President Obama on Wednesday, and receive VIP briefings from top Obama advisers.  They had not requested the interviews.  But Obama wanted to spend four minutes with each reporting team to discuss the minimum wage and the March 31 deadline for Affordable Care Act enrollment. [...] On a rainy day in Washington, the TV crews from Boston, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Dallas, Phoenix and San Diego earned red-carpet treatment from the president's aides and top advisers.

Reporters Held to 4 Minutes With President By Countdown Clock, Looming Aide, and Standing Up.  According to a local CBS Arizona affiliate, President Obama and his team have 3 tactics to make sure reporters stick to the 4 minutes the White House has allotted them to interview the leader of the world:  a countdown clock, a looming aide, and they have to conduct the interview with the president while standing up.  One CBS anchor called the measures "a little ridiculous."

NY Times Reporter: Obama WH 'Greatest Enemy of Press Freedom' Today.  New York Times reporter James Risen has been in a years-long legal battle against the government to reveal one of his confidential sources, even petitioning the Supreme Court to hear his case.  He's been very critical of President Obama's administration for its "aggressive use of the powers of the government to try to rein in independent national security reporting," and in a recent journalism forum, Risen took another shot at the White House for being an enemy of press freedom.

NYTimes Reporter: Obama [is the] 'Greatest Enemy To Press Freedom In A Generation'.  [James] Risen's troubles stem from the 2006 publication of his book "State of War," which included classified information about a failed CIA plot against Iran's nuclear program.  In 2008, George W. Bush's Department of Justice subpoenaed Risen to reveal the source of the classified information.  Citing his role as a journalist, Risen refused to comply, fighting the subpoena until it expired in 2009.  But the Obama administration renewed the subpoena in 2010.

James Risen: Obama hates the press.  New York Times reporter James Risen said Sunday [10/5/2014] that none of the current leak investigations would be happening if President Barack Obama did not hate the media so much, the Morning Sentinel of Maine reports.  "I don't think any of this would be happening under the Obama administration if Obama didn't want to do it," Risen said at Colby College in Maine after he received the Elijah Parish Lovejoy award for journalism.  "I think Obama hates the press.  I think he doesn't like the press and he hates leaks."  Risen could face jail time for refusing to reveal his sources about a failed CIA operation, though Attorney General Eric Holder and Obama have indicated Risen will not go to jail.

Attorney General Won't Force New York Times Reporter to Reveal Source.  Attorney General Eric Holder has decided against forcing a reporter for the New York Times to reveal the identity of a confidential source, according to a senior Justice Department official.  The reporter, James Risen, has been battling for years to stop prosecutors from forcing him to name his source for a book that revealed a CIA effort to sabotage Iran's nuclear weapons program.  The government wanted Risen's testimony in the trial of a former CIA official, Jeffrey Sterling, accused of leaking classified information.

James Risen, in Tense Testimony, Refuses to Offer Clues on Sources.  James Risen, a reporter for The New York Times, took the witness stand in federal court on Monday and refused to answer any questions that could help the Justice Department home in on his confidential sources.  In tense, sometimes confrontational testimony, Mr. Risen declared in the pretrial hearing that he would not say anything that could help prosecutors in their case against a former C.I.A. officer who is set to go on trial soon on charges of providing classified information to Mr. Risen for his 2006 book "State of War."

NYT Journalist James Risen Rips Holder: He's Sent a Message to Dictators That It's Okay To Jail Journalists.  New York Times investigative reporter James Risen has been embroiled in an ugly court battle with the Department of Justice for years (including prior to the Obama administration).  DOJ and Attorney General Eric Holder have been fighting with the power of the federal government to get him thrown in jail and have gone to extensive lengths to find out who his sources are.  Yesterday [2/17/2015], Holder attended a free press event at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. where he claimed to know the importance of a free press in a properly functioning democracy and that the administration has gone easy on whistleblowers and leakers.  The opposite is true.

Reporter protests being 'detained' by Capitol police for trying to question EPA head Gina McCarthy.  U.S. Capitol police officers "detained" a journalist who was attempting to question Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy, according to the reporter, who was released after a background check.

The Editor says...
That doesn't do much for Obama's claim of the most open and transparent administration in history.

A Whole Lotta Democratic Corruption Going On.  Has Nancy Pelosi seen a newspaper lately?  (Pro tip, hon:  Like the Obamacare monstrosity, you have to read it to find out what's in it.)  I'd love to see her face in the wake of the veritable epidemic of Democratic corruption now sweeping the country.  Pelosi's blink count must be off the charts.  I'm going to make it easy on Pelosi and put all of the latest cases in one handy rogue's gallery reference list.  But let's not be naive.  It's clear to me that the Barack Obama/Eric Holder DOJ is clearing the decks before the midterms.  Prediction:  The FBI's GOP corruption shoe will drop right before the elections for maximum distraction and damage.

Obama is the coming Revolution.  At this stage of the Fundamental Transformation of America, the wake up call should be glaringly obvious.  The administration controls the 'news'.  They control the narrative.  They call the shots.  They do the branding and the smearing with the name-calling they intend to make stick.  While various agencies under the control of the administration paint patriots as dissidents, the EPA, their lead agency for change, has been using Americans — including children — as lab rats. [...] There are 435 congressman and 100 senators in Washington, DC but not one of them has exposed the deadly secret of the modern-day EPA.  And it is not just the EPA that Congress has been allowing to get by in the dark.  The news is managed the minute it happens — and often even before.

ObamaCare may or may not have met enrollment goal by that fake deadline.  The Obama administration today will tout impressive enrollment numbers for ObamaCare with the confident precision that can only come from the knowledge that no one else is counting.  No one else can count the numbers.  Because the Obama administration controls access to all the numbers.  It's probably a coincidence, but that is exactly the way votes are counted by the Chicago Democratic machine.  And if the Obama crowd is strutting for the media over enrollment numbers, Americans aren't hearing more about his growing list of foreign policy embarrassments.

This Is Probably The LAST Award The Obama White House Wanted To Win.  The Obama administration has won an award named after America's third president, Thomas Jefferson.  That's the "good" news.  The bad news?  The award is the "Jefferson Muzzle," which the administration won for spying on the news media and limiting journalists' access to Obama.  The "coveted" awards announced Wednesday by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression are presented to people and institutions that engage in the most egregious affronts to the First Amendment.

Who's Attending Eric Holder's Off The Record Meeting With The Media?  Attorney General Eric Holder's planned meeting with mainstream media outlets' Washington bureau chiefs have been stalled after the Justice Department indicated that the conversations would be off-the-record.  The New York Times' executive editor Jill Abramson was the first to decline the invitation, and shortly after the AP, CNN, CBS News and The Huffington Post followed suit.  With much of the debate over the DOJ's subpoena guidelines revolving around reporter James Rosen, Fox News clearly has a vested interest in the outcome of the meeting.

Reporters accuse Obama of deception, demagoguery just to get attention.  Prominent Washington correspondents are accusing President Obama and his aides of knowingly stretching the truth on issues like the so-called women's pay gap just to create controversy and keep issues — and the president — relevant.  Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus kicked off the attack last week when she blasted as "demagoguery" the administration's tactics during the pay gap debate.  "The level of hyperbole — actually, of demagoguery — that Democrats have engaged in here is revolting," she wrote.

White House looking for new ways to penetrate polarized media.  Not only do cable news networks and editorial pages offer markedly different takes on the news, but Americans also are increasingly guided toward like-minded material through the algorithms of online searches and social media. [...] This new reality has prompted the White House to adopt messaging strategies that once might have seemed unusual or even undignified [...]

Politico Notices TV Meteorologists 'More Skeptical' of Climate Change Than Other Scientists.  Politico's Darren Goode surprisingly highlighted the skepticism of many on-air meteorologists in a Monday item about President Obama's interviews with "some of television's most popular celebrities — weather forecasters — to ratchet up the volume on the administration's latest scientific assessment of climate change."

White House Escalates Secret Media War Against Israel.  Senior Obama administration officials have escalated a secret media war to discredit Israel in the press, providing highly critical anonymous quotes and negative information about the Jewish state in a bid to blame it for the recent collapse of peace talks with the Palestinians.  Multiple sources in both the United States and Israel confirmed to the Washington Free Beacon that Middle East envoy Martin Indyk again served as the anonymous source for a recent interview in the Israeli press that lambasted Israel, blamed it for the failure of peace talks, and predicted that Israel needs to face another wave of Palestinian terrorism before it will make peace.

Media misdirection and Climate Change.  With the president facing his lowest approval ratings ever despite his victory lap for having coerced over 8 million people (although that number is likely also a lie) to sign up for expensive health insurance with high deductibles and despite the media's complicity in trying to portray forcing two million young adults to subsidize their grandparents' healthcare as "success," it's time for another pivot.  So right on schedule, this week we get the National Climate Assessment, a U.S.-version of the United Nations' regular fear-mongering IPCC report, full of misdirection, hype, and the occasional outright lie.

Reality Show President: Inside the White House PR Machine.  "The White House has effectively become a broadcast company," says Michael Shaw, publisher of Bagnewsnotes.com, a site dedicated to the analysis of news images.  Shaw explains how strategically composed photos, taken by official White House photographers, travel from social media sites that are controlled by the administration to the front pages of newspapers around the world.

White House Reporter Sent To Shed During Obama's Golf Game.  As President Obama golfed [5/17/2014] at the fancy Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Va., an exclusive course that has hosted four President's cups, the reporter was put in a maintenance shed.  On the way to the shed, Houston Chronicle's Kevin Diaz first waited in the equipment shack cafeteria (whatever that means).  Later, he was sent to a "maintenance shed" to wait out the President's golf game.

Obama to Fundraiser: We're Debating 'About What, Benghazi? Obamacare? It's Not Serious'.  Ticket prices for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fundraiser ranged from $10,000 to $32,400.  The White House pool reporter said the press pool was socked away in a second-floor bedroom of the home while waiting for Obama's remarks.

If you owned Babe Ruth's bat, would you let this guy touch it?
Obama swings Babe Ruth's bat at Baseball Hall of Fame.  President Obama turned tourist at the Baseball Hall of Fame Thursday [5/22/2014], employing a time-tested strategy of embracing sports when the going gets tough in politics.  Obama cradled Babe Ruth's bat and examined Joe DiMaggio's glove at the shrine to America's pastime in upstate Cooperstown — while trying to boost his own batting average with the public.

6 Times Obama Used the Troops for Photo Ops.  On Sunday [5/25/2014], President Obama made a surprise appearance in Afghanistan after sneaking out of the White House on Saturday night.  There, he spoke with Afghan president Hamid Karzai via phone, because Karzai refused to speak with Obama in person. [...] He was in the country for under four hours.  The conspicuous timing of Obama's visit, directly during the fallout over his administration's mishandling of the Veterans Administration, has raised some hackles.  But this is not the first time that President Obama has utilized the troops as a photo op.

Obama Scolds Female Reporter Asking About Afghanistan.  As President Obama toured the White House Science Fair, news broke that he would keep 9,800 troops in Afghanistan after the end of the year even though he signaled that combat operations would end in 2014.  After Obama finished talking to individual students and posing for pictures with the press, White House correspondent for Real Clear Politics Alexis Simendinger asked him a question about breaking news on the White House's approach to Syria's civil war as he prepared to exit the room.

Obama Berates Reporter at Science Fair.  President Obama berated Real Clear Politics reporter Alexis Simendinger after she asked him about reports of the U.S. sending trainers to help the rebels in Syria. [...] "I'm sorry, we're doing a science fair- c'mon, c'mon," Obama responded before rushing out of the room and avoiding comment on the breaking news.

The Editor says...
Mr. Obama is unable to speak extemporaneously, thus he is embarrassed when he is put on the spot with an unexpected question.  That's because he is incompetent.  His attendance at some trivial event does not absolve him of his responsibilities, and one of those responsibilities is to be prepared to give an answer to difficult questions.

Jay Carney suddenly quits — but was it timed to 'deflect attention' from resignation of scandal-hit VA chief?  'He first started talking about it in late April,' the White House insider said Friday [5/30/2014] after the decision was made final.  'But the president had the prerogative to pull the trigger when he decided to.'  That time ended up being Friday, just hours after Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki resigned amid a major scandal involving faked wait-lists and denied medical care in the VA health system.  'To be honest, the move was more about how to deflect attention away from Eric Shinseki's resignation, and less about giving Jay a thoughtful send-off,' the White House official said.

The Prisoner Swap Deal.  Soldiers who served in the same unit with him call him a deserter. The key to this deal, however, is less likely to be what the United States got out of the deal than it is about what Barack Obama got out of the deal.  If nothing else, it instantly got the veterans' hospitals scandals off the front pages of newspapers and pushed these scandals aside on television news programs.  It was a clear winner for Barack Obama.  And that may be all that matters to Barack Obama.

Obama's fake followers strongly approve of his performance.  What intrigues me about manufactured credibility is how easy it is.  I'm not talking about informal penny-ante stuff, like your friends jumping on YouTube to write enthusiastic recommendations for your latest video.  I mean industrial-scale efforts to manipulate opinion by using the Internet as a tool to artificially inflate popularity.  There's not much cost involved, and it's very difficult to see through the illusion.  And it's an interesting comment on mass psychology that people are powerfully swayed by the sense that a large number of "regular folks" approve of something.  At the very least, they find illusory popularity intriguing, and want to know what all the fuss is about.

US Media Restricted at Border, Federal Agent Cites Safety Concerns.  A remote section of the U.S.-Mexico border near the Anzalduas International Bridge is one of the few places where media can witness and record the mass crossings of minors coming from Central America.  The U.S. Border Patrol is now restricting journalists' access to the area citing safety concerns.

When a reporter's story hits the White House wall.  Lara Logan, Sharyl Attkisson, Judith Miller — all esteemed investigative reporters. [...] They are all women who are under attack.  Their crime?  They dared to follow stories to their natural conclusions, instead of to a preferred liberal end.  None of these women are victims, as they continue to thrive despite liberal pawns biting at their ankles.  Their stories do, however, provide proof of hypocritical partisan fixation on demonizing these three prize-winning journalists who refuse to conform to political demands.

Censorship: 38 journalism groups slam Obama's 'politically-driven suppression of news'.  In unprecedented criticism of the White House, 38 journalism groups have assailed the president's team for censoring media coverage, limiting access to top officials and overall "politically-driven suppression of the news."  In a letter to President Obama, the 38, led by the Society of Professional Journalists, said efforts by government officials to stifle or block coverage has grown for years and reached a high-point under his administration despite Obama's 2008 campaign promise to provide transparency.

White House Strong-Arms Photo Agency to Quash Malia Photos.  Malia Obama went to a famous L.A. restaurant Monday night [7/7/2014] — a restaurant regularly frequented by celebs and paparazzi — and when the White House found out a photog took her pic, they went into DEFCON 1 to KILL the photo

Scrapbook Photos: Obama's Summer Road Trips.  A restless President Barack Obama has ventured out on an array of field trips, stopping at local hotspots when he travels and ambling around Washington, D.C.  He's dined on burgers, pizza, barbecue, ice cream and a Chipotle burrito bowl on recent outings.  And last week, he shot pool and drank beer during a stop in Denver.  White House officials say the forays into Americans' everyday lives help re-energize the president and connect him with average folks.

Barack Obama locks out the press — again.  President Barack Obama went to the West Coast to meet donors from two top Democratic super PACs, but the press wasn't invited.  Tuesday [7/22/2014], the reporters and photographers traveling with the president on Air Force One and in his motorcade were left on the gravel path not even within sight of former Costco CEO Jim Sinegal's house in the Seattle suburbs where Obama sat for a Senate Majority PAC fundraiser with a $25,000 entrance fee.

WHCA lodges press access complaint over Apollo 11 meeting.  The ongoing battle for press access at the White House continued on Tuesday [7/22/2014] as the White House Correspondents' Association lodged a formal complaint with press secretary Josh Earnest for limiting coverage of President Barack Obama's meeting with Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.  CBS News' Major Garrett lodged the complaint during the press briefing on Tuesday. Only still photographers were allowed into the meeting for a pool spray.

Most transparent administration ever closes Apollo 11 anniversary event to press.  President Obama met with the surviving members of the moon landing mission Tuesday morning at the White House, but no press was allowed. [...] Major Garrett of CBS News lodged a formal complaint on behalf of the White House Correspondents' Association, which yes, sounds rather meek and procedural in the face of the Obama administration's treatment of the press.  But it's nice to see some fight, and such a complaint draws attention to the White House's opaque standard operating procedure, even on the fluffiest of stories.

How White House Reporters Can Reclaim Their Beat.  Paul Farhi of The Washington Post writes today [7/24/2014] about a trend at the White House — and throughout journalism — that threatens the quality and credibility of news-gathering:  Public-relations "minders" are injecting themselves into our interviews with politicians, CEOs, and other policymakers.  Minder madness joins the surge of "background briefings" and the decline of access to decision-makers as evidence that the White House — and other big instititutions — are manipulating the press.  It's that, but it's also something worse:  It's evidence that journalists are ceding control when they should be seizing it, accepting canned news rather than breaking it.

Barack Obama to reporters: 'I'll take a question'.  President Barack Obama had just done the unthinkable.  He took questions last week from the White House press corps — not just once, but twice.  He didn't call only on the reporters who were selected ahead of time by his senior aides.  He even stuck around longer than he wanted at a briefing Friday [8/1/2014] to appease the room of shouting correspondents.

Obama's FBI to hire firm to rate 'positive and 'negative' stories about the agency.  The FBI is hiring a contractor to grade news stories about the agency as "positive" "neutral" or "negative," but the agency won't say why officials need the information or what they plan to do with it.  FBI officials wouldn't even reveal how they will go about assigning the grades, which were laid out in a recent contract solicitation.  The contract tells potential bidders to "use their judgment" in scoring news coverage as part of a new "daily news briefing" service the agency is seeking as part of a contract that could last up to five years.

Obama making fools of the media.  When disastrous news emerges, Team Obama does two things:  refuses comment and charges its foes with playing politics.  And because the news cycle streams on, the media jump onto the next shiny thing they see and the disastrous news becomes old news replaced by new news.  There have been dozens of scandals, and most have simply slipped away, replaced by newer scandals.  The Fast and Furious gun-running scheme has never been fully explained, and Congress was so fed up that it held Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt (another story that disappeared).  There was (and is) Benghazi, Solyndra, the IRS targeting conservative groups, the "disappeared" hard drive, the Justice Department collecting AP phone logs, "Rosengate," the GSA scandal, the VA mess, and on and on.  None of them has resulted in a firing or even a mild admission of wrongdoing by the administration.

Obama credited with 'remarkable' act for taking reporters' questions.  President Obama apparently has dug himself so deep into the black hole called White House public relations that the media world sat up in shock when he told reporters at a press conference:  "I'll take a question," he said.  In fact, he took not just one but two questions from reporters during press conferences last week, Politico reported.

The glamorous life of a White House journalist, in 2 photos.  According to today's [8/8/2014] White House pool report, photographers were given a little time to photograph President Obama in the Oval Office — and by a little, we mean a little.  "At 11:18 am, the pool was brought to the windows outside the Oval Office for a photo spray.  It lasted 10 seconds."

Is Obama really on Martha's Vineyard? Press whines they never see golfing, hiking Obama.  After being snubbed by the active president who didn't show his face to reporters on Friday [8/22/2014] or Saturday, the press "pool" on Saturday turned to mockery as Obama hit the links — again. [...] While other presidents have tried to briefly make themselves available to traveling media photographers during vacations, Obama has gone days without being seen by the press corps pool, a group formed years ago for death watch duties but also used by the White House as a mini-press corps that relays information to the larger corps.

Obama jets out of the country without saying a single word about Steven Sotloff.  Barack Obama left for a three-day European swing Tuesday afternoon [9/2/2014] without saying a single word in response to a terrorist video showing the beheading of Steven Sotloff, the second American journalist to die that way on camera.  The president's departure came amid equally deafening swirls of helicopter rotors and tough questions about whether and when the U.S. will strike back in a meaningful and public way against ISIS, the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham.

The Editor says...
Mr. Obama is using the Reagan method:  Make sure the helicopter is generating lots of noise, then walk briskly in its direction and pretend not to hear reporters' questions.

Obama administration pressured Fox News to back off Benghazi reporting.  This past Friday [9/5/2014], Greta Van Susteren reported on numerous ways the Obama administration has made it difficult for reporters to investigate Benghazi.  Van Susteren said that it's been "like pulling teeth" trying to get answers and that "the Obama administration's behavior post-Benghazi has been weird; like they're hiding something."  She went on to say that as Fox News continued to investigate and press for answers, the administration's behavior got "even weirder.["]

Is Obama Wagging the Ebola Dog?  The anti-war president has finally found a way to wag the dog without upsetting his liberal base and war-weary electorate.  Despite the beheading of two Americans, establishment of an Islamic caliphate, direct threats to the U.S. homeland, and the destabilization of the entire Middle East, Obama refuses to acknowledge that we are at war with barbaric Islamic jihadists.  And he refuses to authorize the requisite boots on the ground.  However, Obama just discovered his pre-midterm election method of wagging the dog — distracting from his incompetent and dangerous response (or lack thereof) to the real threats to America's national security while looking tough and proactive.

Team Obama Bans Press Cameras from White House Congressional Picnic.  Ahead of President Obama's annual picnic with members of Congress [9/17/2014], the White House prohibited television cameras and photographer access to the event.  Only allowing print pool reporters were allowed to cover Obama's speech.

Reporters say White House Sometimes Demands Changes To Press-Pool Reports.  White House press-pool reports are supposed to be the news media's eyes and ears on the president, an independent chronicle of his public activities.  They are written by reporters for other reporters, who incorporate them into news articles about President Obama almost every day.  Sometimes, however, the White House plays an unseen role in shaping the story.  Journalists who cover the White House say Obama's press aides have demanded — and received — changes in press-pool reports before the reports have been disseminated to other journalists.  They say the White House has used its unusual role as the distributor of the reports as leverage to steer coverage in a more favorable direction.

White House Allegedly Tampering with Journalists' Reports on Obama.  The Obama White House is once again at the center of a story on the balance between government transparency and freedom of the press.  Paul Farhi in the Washington Post writes that the press office in the current White House has on several occasions meddled with the pool reports on President Barack Obama.

Reporter: White House Aide Told Me Not To Talk To Crowd At Michelle Obama Campaign Event.  Meg Kissinger, a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, posted on Facebook that she was told by a White House aide that she was not allowed to talk to people in the crowd.

'Creeped Out' Wisconsin Reporter Mad at Obama/Dem Attempt to Stop Her From Talking to Crowd.  Jonathon Seidl at The Blaze relayed that reporter Meg Kissinger of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel — a newspaper that endorsed Barack Obama in 2008 as "adept at detail and vision" — complained on both Facebook and Twitter that aides to Michelle Obama and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke told her she could not talk to the crowd at a Burke event in Milwaukee.

Reporter Barred From Reporting at Michelle Event.  A veteran reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said Monday she was prevented from talking to the crowd during an event at which First Lady Michelle Obama spoke.  Michelle was appearing Monday on behalf of Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke.  The reporter, Meg Kissinger, said she was "creeped out" by the Orwellian encounter with officials from the White House and the Burke campaign.

The Next Time the Obama WH Tells Reporters They Can't Interview People.  The next time the Obama White House does this to reporters, they should tell them to fold it five ways and stick it where the moon don't shine.  They should then proceed to interview people.  This puts the ball in the White House's court.  If an Obama aide tells reporters to cease interviewing people then the reporters should ask, "And what if we don't?  What are you going to do?  Arrest us?"  The spectacle of the Obama Administration arresting reporters for exercising their rights under the First Amendment would not only further erode their credibility with a public that has grown tired of their antics, but would do them irrevocable damage with an institution that has not only given this President the benefit of the doubt, but has been effusive in their praise of him.  Should this come to pass then the Obama Administration will have lost the mainstream media.

8 Ways the Obama Administration Restricts Access to Information, According to the Associated Press.  The Associated Press' Washington bureau chief is the latest journalist to criticize the Obama administration for failing to live up to its promise of transparency.  "Bush was not fantastic," Sally Buzbee recently told a meeting of journalists.  "The [Obama] administration is significantly worse than previous administrations."  Buzbee detailed eight ways the Obama administration is restricting access to information at a joint meeting of the American Society of News Editors, the Associated Press Media Editors and the Associated Press Photo Managers.

Investigator claims he was told to delay Secret Service prostitution report until after election.  Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, also questioned whether a double standard was at play, considering many Secret Service and military personnel were disciplined on that trip for seeing prostitutes and other inappropriate behavior. [...] "The concern is that when it came to the White House and the White House taking care of its own personnel, a totally different standard," Chaffetz said.  "And perhaps some misdirection and some cover-up to make sure that that story never saw the light of day before the 2012 elections."

White House pool reporters test [their] own news distribution system.  White House journalists are creating an alternative system for distributing their media "pool" reports in response to the Obama administration's involvement in approving and disapproving certain content in official reports.  A small group of reporters initiated an online forum this month in which they shared "pool" information among themselves, without White House involvement.

D.C. Reporters Push Back on White House Control.  Nobody likes a micro-manager.  Especially when that micro-manager is the government.  Here in the United States, we have this great thing called "the freedom of the press," protected by our Constitution.  But the White House doesn't always seem to value that freedom above its own image.  And since it is the primary distributor for some reports on the president's activity, it takes advantage of that position to block certain content from being made public.

The New Presidential Propaganda.  The first year of the Obama presidency generated a stream of photo ops that pushed a clear editorial line. [...] As the White House gained more control over the creation and distribution of its own images, the less inclined it was to allow the independent press to photograph the president.  Photojournalists have been prohibited from covering the president's meetings with Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, the Dalai Lama, and Hillary Clinton, among other events of undisputed public interest.  All the while, Pete Souza, Obama's official photographer, has enjoyed unfettered access to the president.

USA Today's Susan Page: Obama administration most 'dangerous' to media in history.  At some point, a compendium of condemnations against the Obama administration's record of media transparency (actually, opacity) must be assembled.  Notable quotations in this vein come from former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson, who said, "It is the most secretive White House that I have ever been involved in covering"; New York Times reporter James Risen, who said, "I think Obama hates the press"; and CBS News's Bob Schieffer, who said, "This administration exercises more control than George W. Bush's did, and his before that."  USA Today Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page has added a sharper edge to this set of knives.

Apparently the President would prefer not to have the press report his movements, actions and words.
On Obama's Asia trip, members of media will have to pay $60,000 each for flights.  President Obama's trip to Asia next month should prove to be reasonably newsworthy, given its regional summit meetings in China and Burma and a stopover in Australia.  For the news media, however, there is a more immediate concern:  the heart-stopping cost of covering the president's travels.  News organizations began reacting with surprise and exasperation when they learned this week that a ticket to ride on the press charter plane that follows Obama throughout Asia will be $60,000.  Per person.

Attkisson exposes C-SPAN-White House dispute.  Among the juicier tidbits in the new book "Stonewalled" by former CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson relates to a tiff between C-SPAN and the White House.

What's in a 'scoop'? The White House has a strategy for that.  When the New York Times broke a story in June about the Obama administration's plans to expand its efforts on immigration enforcement, rival reporters spied a hidden hand behind the news.  With its prescient timing and abundant details, the article looked very much like an "authorized" leak, a bit of news stage-managed by White House officials.

Keystone Korps: The farce of the White House press.  Is the White House press corps obsolete?  Today its members are restless, grumbling about an Obama White House that claims to be the most transparent ever.  From big issues such as the tapping of a Fox reporters's phone to the media blackout imposed on the president's golf game with Tiger Woods, the chorus goes up:  When it comes to the press, President Obama may be even worse than ... Nixon.

AP demands Holder explain FBI's fake newspaper sting.  The FBI's use of a fake Associated Press news story to locate a suspect raises "constitutional concerns," the news organization wrote in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday [10/30/2014].  A lawyer for the AP called on the Justice Department to vow never to impersonate the news outlet again and to specify what authority it used to justify the action.

Audio recordings show 12-day no-fly zone over Ferguson was really meant to keep away news helicopters.  The U.S. government agreed to a police request to restrict more than 37 square miles of airspace surrounding Ferguson, Missouri, for 12 days in August for safety, but audio recordings show that local authorities privately acknowledged the purpose was to keep away news helicopters during violent street protests.  On Aug. 12, the morning after the Federal Aviation Administration imposed the first flight restriction, FAA air traffic managers struggled to redefine the flight ban to let commercial flights operate at nearby Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and police helicopters fly through the area — but ban others.

Sharyl Attkisson Reveals Obama Administration Methods To Manipulate Media.  Lesson in how the administration attempts to manipulate the press and news coverage:  Fast and Furious email to Attorney General Eric Holder from a communications adviser, Oct. 5, 2011.  (President Obama withheld this email under executive privilege but it was recently released as a result of a lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch against the Justice Department).

Red herring alert:
Obama Tries To Focus Public On Racist Cops.  President Barack Obama's first move in December will be to focus the nation's attention on complaints about racist cops in African-American communities.  The move may be part of an effort to grab the political initiative after the Democrats' massive losses in the Nov. 4 election, and also to keep the public's attention away from his unpopular Nov. 21 announcement that he will provide 4 million illegal immigrants with work permits and taxpayer-funded aid programs.

Stonewalled: A Conversation with Sharyl Attkisson.  In many cases, reporters have allowed the government under the Obama administration to bully them into submission.  [Sharyl Attkisson] documents how the Obama presidency has become an enemy to openness and is one of the least transparent administrations in American history.  In fact, after reading what she had to go through, President Obama makes Richard Nixon look like Mother Teresa.

The Media Remains Focused On The Manufactured "Crisis At Hand".  Whatever happened to the results of the Bowe Bergdahl investigation that was completed by the Army?  What about that Unaccompanied Alien Children crisis that Jeh Johnson was saying required the emergency $3.7 Billion dollar "emergency" appropriations that never took place?

White House, Democrats teaming up on 'Immigration Strike Team'.  The White House and congressional Democrats are teaming up to form an "Immigration Strike Team" to serve as a better-organized rapid response force to counter whatever Republicans do or say about immigration reform in the coming months.

Ann Compton on Obama: He Launches 'Profanity-Laced' Tirades Against Press.  According to retired ABC News journalist Ann Compton, Barack Obama launches into "profanity-laced" tirades against the press in off-the-record meetings with reporters.  In a C-SPAN interview, Compton also derided the President for leading "the most opaque" administration of "any I have covered."  The journalist, who retired in August after a 40-year career, revealed to C-SPAN's Brian Lamb:  "I have seen in the last year Barack Obama really angry twice.  Both were off-the-record times.  One, profanity-laced where he thought the press was making too much of scandals that he did not think were scandals."

Attkisson: I've Been On Receiving End Of Obama Official's Profanity-Laced Tirades.  Appearing on "The Steve Malzberg Show" Monday afternoon [12/8/2014], author Sharyl Attkisson responded to former ABC News correspondent Ann Compton's claim that President Barack Obama and his officials routinely direct profanity-laced tirades at reporters.  Attkisson told Malzberg she has been on the receiving end of those conversations in the past, and others, specifically The Associated Press, have been subject to scorn at the hands of Obama officials.  "Maybe this is just me or a personal opinion that a profanity-laced conversation with professionals in the press by the president of the U.S. is probably inappropriate," said Attkisson.

Obama Cursed Out Reporters About His Coverage.  Ann Compton, who recently retired after many years covering the White House for ABC, reveals that President Obama offered a profanity-laced critique of his coverage to reporters during an off the record session.

Activist That Introduced UVA's 'Jackie' To Rolling Stone Made Numerous White House Visits.  The activist that introduced false University of Virginia rape accuser "Jackie" to Rolling Stone magazine worked with top White House advisers in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building to craft websites and official documents on the White House's college sexual assault policies.  Emily Renda, who works in the vice president for student affairs office at UVA, put "Jackie" in touch with Rolling Stone reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely for Erdely's now discredited expose on a fictional fraternity gang rape.

Josh Earnest: Obama Will Try To Stop 'Anti-Islam' Articles.  Wait a minute. Obama didn't try to stop 'journalists' from reporting on the Democrat Senate staffers' (mendacious) CIA 'Torture' report.  In fact, he cheered them on.  Even though every responsible grown up in the military and elsewhere said it could bring about retaliatory terrorist attacks. [...] In fact, it's hard to remember anytime that Obama objected to any media actions that put our soldiers or Americans in general at risk.

White House: Obama Will Fight Media To Stop Anti-Jihad Articles.  President Barack Obama has a moral responsibility to push back on the nation's journalism community when it is planning to publish anti-jihadi articles that might cause a jihadi attack against the nation's defense forces, the White House's press secretary said Jan. 12. [...] The unprecedented reversal of Americans' civil-military relations, and of the president's duty to protect the First Amendment, was pushed by Earnest as he tried to excuse the administration's opposition in 2012 to the publication of anti-jihadi cartoons by the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

The White House violence incentive system.  If the Government things exercising the first Amendment rights guaranteed by our constitution will upset violent fanatics said government will do what it can to prevent said people from doing so.  Apparently Baptists, Catholics, Mormons, Hindus, Sikhs, Jews and other assorted religious groups have been doing it all wrong.  If we would only ignore what our religions actually say and mimic the actions of the significant minority of well-funded Muslims who are willing to commit violence to keep people from insulting or blaspheming our relative religions, our government would lead the charge to make sure we were never insulted in media, film or on TV again.

Story that Boehner blindsided Obama on Netanyahu invitation was manufactured agitprop.  A correction appearing in the New York Times quietly unravels what has become a major story as phony agitprop, intended to discredit the leaders of Israel and the House of Representatives.  Of course, the story is still believed by many, and has well served those in the White House and media who created and disseminated it.

Pew: Two-thirds of reporters say Obama administration spies on them.  In a survey of investigative reporters that makes Richard Nixon's enemies list look like child's play, nearly seven in 10 said they believe that the Obama administration has spied on their phone calls, emails and online searches.  According to a Pew Research Center survey of 454 media figures, 64 percent "believe that the U.S. government has probably collected data" from their calls and email and eight in 10 believe just being a journalist jumps the chance Uncle Sam is spying on them.  The survey follows multiple reports of actual spying by federal officials on reporters, and the White House's effort to track down those who leak information to reporters despite long-forgotten promises to be the most transparent administration ever.

Obama Spat with Israel's Netanyahu was White House Creation.  The entire spat with the White House over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's invitation to speak to Congress was entirely manufactured by the White House.  The truth about the incident, in which the White House complained that it was terribly wrong for Netanyahu to accept House Speaker John Boehner's (R., Ohio) invitation without first notifying the administration, was made evident by a correction added to a New York Times article that greatly changed the timeline of events that effected the situation.

The Obama White House Manufactured The Netanyahu 'Speech To Congress Controversy'.  Essentially the crux of the back-story is that Netanyahu contacted the White House about the invitation to talk to congress, prior to accepting the invitation; the White House never contacted Netanyahu back.  Absent of the White House responding, and out of an abundance of caution to appearances, Netanyahu accepted the invitation.  Then whammo, the White House claims President Obama was disparaged.  It would appear the White House set up the narrative intentionally.

Obama protects generals in leak probes while low-level employees go to jail, analysts say.  Analysts are questioning whether the White House is protecting one of its inner-circle members in a leak investigation, especially given the Obama administration's demonstrated willingness to prosecute and imprison lower-level government employees for providing classified information to the press.

Ex-FBI Official: Holder Deliberately 'Eclipsed' Darren Wilson's Exoneration.  Attorney General Eric Holder deliberately "eclipsed" a report exonerating former Ferguson, Missouri Police Officer Darren Wilson in the Aug. 9, 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown by releasing another report the same day accusing the Ferguson Police Department of racism, a former FBI official told CNSNews.com.  "Eric Holder knew in the fall that there was zero evidence to continue pursuing a case against Darren Wilson.  He had seven months to make an announcement," former FBI assistant director Ronald Hosko pointed out.

Access denied: Reporters say federal officials, data increasingly off limits.  Stacey Singer, a health reporter for the Palm Beach Post in Florida, was perusing a medical journal in 2012 when she came across something startling: a federal epidemiologist's report about a tuberculosis outbreak in the Jacksonville area. Singer promptly began pursuing the story.  But when she started seeking official comment about the little-reported outbreak, the doors began closing. [...] The stories aren't always as consequential or as dramatic as a TB outbreak, but Singer's experience is shared by virtually every journalist on the government beat, from the White House on down.

Angry White House Press Corp Sending List Of Demands To President Obama.  The White House Correspondents' Association is reportedly crafting a list of demands to be sent to the White House, after an incident last week in which a pool of reporters covering the president's visit to Salt Lake City were turned away from a meeting between Obama and Mormon leaders.  The list of demands is not yet complete, but will contain a series of written promises the press corps wants the White House to commit to.

Watchdog Group: White House Gaslighting Journalists Over Iran.  The Obama administration has been gaslighting reporters over concessions to Iran that could release between $30 to $50 billion dollars in frozen Iranian assets as soon as a nuclear deal is signed, Washington DC-based watchdog the Israel Project accused on Monday [4/201/2015].  The group cited President Obama's move on Friday to placate Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei's latest demand for immediate sanctions relief upon signing a deal.  While the Obama administration insisted it had not shown flexibility and offered no new concessions, it was simultaneously preparing to phase out sanctions in such a way that would offer the Iranians immediate and significant economic relief, the Israel Project said.

Obama's global warming distraction.  Incredibly, in Sunday's [4/19/2015] weekly video address, President Obama said, "Today, there is no greater threat to our planet than climate change."  I say "incredibly" because that just isn't true — and if President Obama really believes it is, then it is time to panic.  Given the state of the world and the urgent problems facing us that directly affect our prospects for peace and prosperity, global warming shouldn't even be in the top five on the list of problems our president should be worrying about.

White House Press Document Demands More Access To President; Monthly Press Conference.  The White House press corp is releasing a draft version of a series of demands from reporters trying to cover the activities of the president.  It has drafted a document of "principles and practices" for access at the White House.  "As we commit ourselves to the letter and spirit of these Principles and Practices, we urge the current administration, future administrations and all serious Presidential campaigns to do the same," a letter from the The White House Correspondents' Association to White House staff explains.

Stop using ISIL footage, Obama administration asks networks.  Frustrated that coverage of the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant isn't reflecting reality on the ground, senior Obama administration officials are urging television networks to update their footage of the radical militant group.  Senior State Department and Pentagon officials have begun contacting television network reporters to ask them to stop using "B-roll" — stock footage that appears on screen while reporters and commentators talk — showing ISIL at the peak of its strength last summer.

The Editor says...
Okay, if you're tired of the same old B-roll, let's show the footage of Muslims beheading Christians on the evening news — every morning and every night.

Remember When Barack Obama Tried to Silence Political Speech in 2007?  Barack Obama said during a speech at Georgetown last week that we're going to have to change how our body politic thinks, indicating that Republican leaders Boehner and McConnell were the ones needing changing.  He also said, we're going to have to change how the media reports on these issues, specifically referring to Fox News at the time.  Signs of how Obama thinks about dissent and free speech were evident in a bill he tried to pass in 2007.  The bill would make lying a federal crime if it concerned politics around election time.  By rights, that should put Obama in prison but it's geared to set up Republicans.

Our new normal: Ramadi falls, Obama golfs, tweets and Clinton chit-chats.  Ramadi, the major provincial capital of Iraq's Anbar province, fell over the weekend to the terrorist troops of ISIS, who began their systematic civic slaughter once more.  Thank goodness, however, the good Washington weather enabled President Obama to get in another round of weekend golf with his chums.  And on Monday — Quick, look over there! — Obama debuted his very own Twitter page, @POTUS.  "Hello, Twitter!  It's Barack.  Really!  Six years in, they're finally giving me my own account."

Obama Hysterically Attacks New York Times for Reporting on Iran's Aggressive Nuke Expansion.  Administration officials have spent the last two days attacking a Tuesday [6/2/2015] report in The New York Times that Iran's stockpile of low enriched uranium (LEU) is now 20% greater than when it signed the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) in November 2013.  The Times article noted that the growth of that stockpile contradicted the administration's claim that the JPOA had "frozen" Iran's nuclear program.

Even Souza's Not Perfect.  The White House is famous for blocking press photographers from covering President Obama events and only releasing official white house photographs to the media.  The Obama administration is so intent on controlling 'optics' the press corps has even sent demand letters and threatened lawsuits.  Of course the 'most transparent administration never', just ignores or even ridicules the media requests.

Obama disappears, abandons press corps.  President Obama disappeared abruptly without the press pool after spending Sunday [7/5/2015] golfing at Andrews Air Force Base.  He took former Hawaii school mate Mike Ramos, pal Marty Nesbitt, the co-CEO of the Vistria group, ESPN's Mike Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser with him to the links for approximately six hours of golfing, before abruptly taking off without the waiting press pool.

Media Critic: Obama Has 'One of the Most Hostile Press Admin. In the World'.  Appearing on Fox News' Media Buzz, David Zurawik, television and media critic for the Baltimore Sun, hammered President Obama over his relationship with the press and accused him of having "one of the most hostile press administrations in the world."  Zurawik reacted to President Obama's final appearance on the Daily Show which he described as "22 minutes and 13 seconds of let Obama spin his spin."

Stewart Just Another Dishonest Liberal Seeking Obama's Approval.  Jon Stewart isn't a fearless, funny comedian who bravely skewers politicians of all stripes with his wicked humor, sarcasm and invective.  But he plays one on TV.  In reality, he's just another left-wing media toady.  As Stewart prepares for his final "Daily Show" taping on Aug. 6, maybe we shouldn't be surprised that, as Politico reported Tuesday, he has taken secret trips to the White House so President Obama could try to influence his show.  We doubt that he did the same thing for George W. Bush.

The Pentagon's Dangerous Views on the Wartime Press.  The Defense Department earlier this summer released a comprehensive manual outlining its interpretation of the law of war.  The 1,176-page document, the first of its kind, includes guidelines on the treatment of journalists covering armed conflicts that would make their work more dangerous, cumbersome and subject to censorship.  Those should be repealed immediately.  Journalists, the manual says, are generally regarded as civilians, but may in some instances be deemed "unprivileged belligerents," a legal term that applies to fighters that are afforded fewer protections than the declared combatants in a war.  In some instances, the document says, "the relaying of information (such as providing information of immediate use in combat operations) could constitute taking a direct part in hostilities."

Just in case you thought Hillary might be indicted, Obama spent the weekend socializing with her and Bill.  Not just socializing, I should note, but socializing in public, an implicit reminder to the DOJ and intelligence community that Hillary Clinton's prospects are important to him and his party.  When was the last time the subject of an FBI investigation that's on the front page of newspapers across the country got to party with the president the same week? [...] Who cares if there's an appearance of impropriety here?  What are you going to do, impeach him?

Median income falls to a 20-year low.  When Obama leaves office he is going to leave behind a legacy of failure.  Not only with Iran possess nuclear weapons and our alliances be in tatters, but he has carried out a vicious, no-holds-barred war on the national economy and the American middle class.  The left is pushing the concept of "income inequality" attempting to ignite class warfare.  They are doing this not out any particular solidarity with the poor but to create a piñata to divert popular attention from the way the American family has been crushed under Obama.

Obama visits with top newspaper executives raise questions about media fairness.  Nearly seven years into his tenure, President Obama remains on friendly terms with some powerful figures in the media.  In recent weeks, the president has gotten cozy with top executives at major U.S. newspapers, headlining a Democratic Party fundraiser at the home of Las Vegas Sun owner Brian Greenspun and dining at the Anchorage home of Alaska Dispatch News publisher Alice Rogoff during a three-day trek across the state last week.

Obama visits with top newspaper executives raise questions about media fairness.  Nearly seven years into his tenure, President Obama remains on friendly terms with some powerful figures in the media.  In recent weeks, the president has gotten cozy with top executives at major U.S. newspapers, headlining a Democratic Party fundraiser at the home of Las Vegas Sun owner Brian Greenspun and dining at the Anchorage home of Alaska Dispatch News publisher Alice Rogoff during a three-day trek across the state last week.

White House won't say if it's behind Facebook gun ban.  The White House on Monday [2/1/2016] refused to say whether Facebook's recent decision to ban users from facilitating the sale of guns, parts and ammunition was the result of pressure from the Obama administration. [...] The administration has met with social media and technology companies to discuss how to close the "Internet loophole" on gun sales, but [White House spokesman Josh] Earnest said he "could not say" if Facebook's decision was the result of "any specific request" from anyone in the administration.

The case of Audrey Hudson

Federal agents' pre-dawn raid on reporter's home raises questions.  Audrey Hudson's husband had just left for work on August 6 when suddenly, her dog began barking.  The nationally-known journalist walked over to the curtains and peeked outside to discover her Chesapeake Bay home was surrounded by law enforcement officers wearing full body armor.  The phone rang.  It was her husband.  "I'm in the driveway," he said.  "The police are here.  Open the door."  And so began Hudson's nightmare — held captive by armed agents of the U.S. Coast Guard, Maryland State Police and the Department of Homeland Security as they staged a pre-dawn raid in search of unregistered firearms and a "potato gun."

Exclusive: Feds confiscate investigative reporter's confidential files during raid.  A veteran Washington D.C. investigative journalist says the Department of Homeland Security confiscated a stack of her confidential files during a raid of her home in August — leading her to fear that a number of her sources inside the federal government have now been exposed.

Silencing dissent by SWATing messengers of truth.  [Scroll down]  Ms. Hudson is now speaking out because of what the agents of this Gestapo-like tactic took from her home.  While the search warrant was limited to any alleged guns on the premises — again — stemming from a quarter-century old incident reportedly involving her husband, their reach well exceeded their authority.  What was taken from the home of Audrey Hudson was more valuable than any gun.  What was taken from Audrey Hudson, in addition to her freedoms as an American citizen and a Pulitzer Prize nominee for her journalistic prowess, were her pages of notes and names of sources inside and outside of government who had confidentially provided her information over the years.

Armed agents seize records of reporter, Washington Times prepares legal action.  Maryland state police and federal agents used a search warrant in an unrelated criminal investigation to seize the private reporting files of an award-winning former investigative journalist for The Washington Times who had exposed problems in the Homeland Security Department's Federal Air Marshal Service.  Reporter Audrey Hudson said the investigators, who included an agent for Homeland's Coast Guard service, took her private notes and government documents that she had obtained under the Freedom of Information Act during a predawn raid of her family home on Aug. 6.

'Clearly Intimidation': Feds Seize Reporter's Files During Pre-Dawn Raid.  A conservative reporter alleges that in a pre-dawn raid, the Feds took her files while searching her home for a toy potato gun.  Audrey Hudson, Washington correspondent for the Colorado Observer, thinks the government may have an ulterior motive for conducting the search.  In her first television interview, Hudson told Gretchen Carlson on The Real Story that the raid stems from her husband purchasing a potato launcher online five years ago.  The search warrant presented said they came to recover the gun.  However, she said, "Once they were in the house, the first thing that the Homeland Security officer asked me was 'Are you the same Audrey Hudson who wrote all of the Federal Air Marshal stories for The Washington Times?'"

Update:
Government Agrees to Settlement for Raiding Reporter's Home, Seizing Confidential Files.  An investigative reporter whose private files were illegally seized during a raid on her home will receive $50,000 as part of a settlement with the Department of Homeland Security.  Audrey Hudson, an award-winning journalist most recently at the Washington Times, told The Daily Signal she was awoken by her barking dog around 4:30 a.m. on Aug. 6, 2013, to discover armed government agents had descended on her property under the cover of darkness.  The agents had a search warrant for her husband's firearms.  As they scoured the home, Hudson was read her Miranda rights.  While inside Hudson's house, a U.S. Coast Guard agent confiscated documents that contained "confidential notes, draft articles, and other newsgathering materials" that Hudson never intended for anyone else to see.  The documents included the identities of whistleblowers at the Department of Homeland Security.

This is an original compilation, Copyright © 2024 by Andrew K. Dart

"Spontaneous" events and "randomly selected" people