News Media Bias
in President Obama's Favor

Note:  You might want to start at the Barack Obama Index Page, especially if you arrived here by using a search engine.

The subject of pro-Obama media bias in general is covered on this page.  Some of the overflow from that page is shown below.

On this page:

ABC is the most obvious about it

The Obama team manipulates the media

The case of Audrey Hudson

"Spontaneous" events and "randomly selected" people

Not just a Fluke:  Left-wing activist posing as victim.

Friday night document dumps


On other nearby pages:

The Unexpected:  Bad news about the economy always comes as a surprise.

Pro-Obama media bias

Media favoritism in the 2008 presidential campaign

Media favoritism between the November 2008 election and the January 2009 inauguration

Barack Obama vs the Associated Press

Barack Obama vs Fox News Channel

Hilary Rosen and the feminist Democrats' disdain for "Stay at Home Moms"

The strange case of "Ellie Light"

And not only Fox News...
White House pressure is applied to all who disagree

Obama and the news media versus Toyota

Using doctors as props on the White House lawn

Using the National Endowment for the Arts as a propaganda tool

The dog ate my thesis.

Biased news coverage of "tea parties"

Obama is a cigarette smoker  but nothing is said about that on TV.

Similarly, the media has covered up Joe Biden's gaffes and baggage, before and after the election.

The clamor for Obama's impeachment, although muffled by the news media, is beginning to brew.




The Unexpected

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

This subsection has moved to a page of its own, located here.


ABC is the most obvious about it

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.

Diane Sawyer Joins the Obama Campaign.  Last night, all three broadcast networks found the revelations heard in congressional hearings surrounding the September 11 anniversary attack in Libya (criminally lax security and an obvious White House cover up) unworthy of leading their nightly newscasts.  All three hit the story, but all three are killing themselves to downplay an explosive scandal they know could damage Obama's reelection chances.

ABC Removes Romney's Opening Speech from Debate Transcript.  ABC News, on its website that claims it represents the whole transcript of last Wednesday's debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, decided that they would help Obama out once again.  This time, they did it by completely removing Romney's opening statement.

ABC's Stephanopoulos Leads Post-Debate Media Spin for Democrats.  One of the most reliable pro-Democratic pundits is none other than George Stephanpoulos — not especially surprising, given his track record as a loyal operative for Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, but hardly the objective, unbiased voice touted by ABC News.  MRC has documented how, in eight out of the last nine general election presidential debates (every one since he joined ABC News in 1997), Stephanopoulos has gone on his network's airwaves to claim victory for the Democratic candidate, all in the guise of offering impartial analysis.

Obama to reporter: I will unite America!  The alternative headline could easily be, "Proof that the president believes you unwashed masses don't remember the last three years" or "Mainstream media drone lets Obama get away with one of the most absurd statements of his presidency to date (besides the one about healing the planet, of course)."  The interview being referenced here is Obama's exclusive with ABC's Diane Sawyer, which ran late last week.  Sawyer was attempting to goad Obama into saying that Newt Gingrich labeling him a Food Stamp President was somehow racist (it's not).

ABC Breaks, Then Ignores News on Obama White House Ties to Solyndra.  On Tuesday and Wednesday's World News, reporter Brian Ross exposed e-mails indicating that the Obama administration gave a $535 million loan to the green company Solyndra, despite deep misgivings inside the government about its viability.  Yet, Good Morning America has declined to follow-up on the ABC scoop.

ABC quickly puts a positive spin on a major scandal:
Solyndra Bankruptcy Unlikely to Hamper Gov't Investment In Green Jobs .  While the evidence continues to prove that gambling millions in taxpayer money on a company that made just $3 for a product that took $7 to produce was rather unwise, it doesn't look like the one bad apple has ruined the whole orchard of green energy investments.

Stephanopoulos Insists Obama's 'Done Remarkably Well'.  When asked how Obama is doing overall, [ABC's George] Stephanopoulos pulled out the old line about how nobody "in our lifetime" has been dealt a tougher hand coming into the White House, as if Ronald Reagan had it easy faced with Carter-era inflation and unemployment.

Obama's Mouthpiece?  ABC News talking head Cokie Roberts was shilling for the Obama administration once again on Good Morning America during an interview with former Clinton operative George Stephanopoulos.  She wasn't just shilling for Obama but tying to mold the news and public opinion to her left-wing druthers instead of giving an honest review of today's political climate.

ABC's Moran, Stephanopoulos Shill for Obama's Gulf Address.  Despite widespread criticism of President Barack Obama's Oval Office address on the Gulf oil spill — including flak from MSNBC's left-wing posse of Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, and Howard Fineman — ABC's Terry Moran and George Stephanopoulos on the June 15 "Nightline" fawned over the president's speech and ignored its obvious shortcomings.

ABC's George Stephanopoulos Defends Obama's Smoking, Coos Over Physical Fitness.  Ex-Clinton aide turned journalist George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday gushed over the results of Barack Obama's first White House physical, even going so far as to defend the President's continued smoking.  Talking to Dr. Richard Besser, the Good Morning America host defended, "My reaction is, what is the big deal?  He's got the most stressful job on the planet."

ABC Sticks to Obama Staffers and Friends on Church Avoidance in Year One.  The Obama family's continued lack of church-going in Washington was spun by ABCNews.com into something cute and positive... No one in the ABC piece is allowed to question if Obama now has a phobia about church attendance due to his 20-year membership in the church of radical-left Rev. Jeremiah Wright.  Dwyer can't even bring himself to mention Wright's name, only that Obama quit "Chicago's embattled Trinity United Church of Christ."  He couldn't get any more specific than that.

ABC You Later.  Once upon a time the press wasn't simply an advocate for a particular brand of politics, it was their responsibility to be a watchdog of our government and report the facts and subsequently the general public could weigh those facts and form some sort of opinion.  In the Age of Obama, that idea is as foreign as the Votian language.  Today, our established media not only decide what should be constituted as news but also determine what news is factual.

ABC infomercial for ObamaCare
ABC Self-Nationalizes For Obama.  As much of the U.S. private sector, including health care providers, resists government takeovers, what a sorry sight to see ABC News leap forward to make itself a propaganda arm of the government.

ABC becomes the 'All Barack Channel'.  The mainstream media is so in love with Barack Obama that they continually try to one-up each other in their sycophantic coverage of their new president.  But ABC has raised the stakes by taking up residence in the White House for a day in order to spew the Official Party Line on health care.

ABC:  A Love Story.  A full day's worth of single-payer friendly health care coverage on ABC was just what President Barack Obama's doctor ordered.  The president hopes to radically change the country's current health care system, so he enlisted his one of his more powerful constituents — ABC News — for help.

Welcome To The Ministry of Propaganda.  We now hear that on June 24, ABC Television will provide Barack Obama with free time, pre-empting prime time entertainment for what amounts to an infomercial promoting nationalized health care.  Of course, they have no intention of doing the same for the opposition.  They have ceded their independence and become lapdogs to the government.

ABC Should Drop All Pretense and Go With An All Barack Lineup.  Let them all know that you're sick of it.  Stop watching their "news".  It's no longer news.  Send them the only message they understand; crash their ratings, and thus their revenue.  Rent a DVD, or tune into Fox on June 24.  Then boycott Charlie, Katie and Brian everyday before it's too late.  Stop feeding the beast.

Did ABC Fabricate Projections of an Underwater Southern Florida?  Yesterday [6/16/2009], the White House released an over-the-top climate report, meant to bolster waning public support (through fear-mongering) for the administration's disastrous carbon taxation scheme.  But as overly-alarming as was the document itself, its portrayal by ABC's crack meteorologist Sam Champion on today's Good Morning America may have redefined hysterical reporting.

ABC ObamaCare Special Turns Into Presidential Filibuster.  Call this a teachable moment, but even with ABC's best-laid plans to kickstart the debate about health care reform and not allow the "Prescription for America" special to become an "infomercial," as many have complained — the president spent more than twice as much time as his questioners vaguely answering or not answering the questions asked of him.  But the network consistently presented the event as part of the need to fix a "broken system."  When asked, every one of the 164 hand-picked audience members said they felt that health care needed to be changed.

The media's love affair with President Obama.  There are several troubling aspects to ABC's relationship with the administration.  Linda Douglass, a former ABC News journalist, is now communications director in the White House's Office of Health Reform.  The Washington Times recently reported that employees of ABC gave 80 times as much in contributions to Obama's campaign ($124,421) as they did to his Republican opponent, McCain ($1,550).  And a study released this month by the Business and Media Institute found that ABC News had aired stories with positive reviews of Obama's health-care policy 55 times, while it featured just 18 negative stories on the subject.

How ABC Stacked the Deck for Obama:  With the very first question of its prime time special, Questions for the President: Prescription for America, ABC set the tone that essentially confirmed for viewers that the president was right in his desire to radically remake America's healthcare system.  As the infomercial began, "moderator" Charles Gibson asked a seminal question of the doctors and other participants that were about to hear the president speak:  "How many of you agree with the president that we need to change our healthcare system?"  Naturally they all raised their hands.

'How... Can Anyone Take ABC Seriously?'  In an open letter sent today [7/30/2009] to ABC News President David Westin, NewsBusters.org Publisher Brent Bozell questioned the ethics of ABC as a "news" network and wondered "how in the world can anyone take ABC seriously" after it was announced that ABC News has hired Democratic donor Dr. Richard Besser to be their new Senior Medical Editor.

Obama's Classroom Campaign: No Junior Lobbyist Left Behind.  "ABC" stands for All Barack's Children.  On Sept. 8, young students across the country will be watching television.  Yes, they'll be parked in front of boob tubes and computer screens watching President Obama's address on education.  Instead of practicing cursive, reviewing multiplication tables, diagramming sentences or learning something concrete, America's kids will be lectured about the importance of learning.

ABC's Jake Tapper bans "Obamacare" from his blog.  For a guy from Salon, Jake Tapper has struck me as someone who has been very conscientious as the White House correspondent for ABC News.  He usually is trying to be a watchdog, even when his colleagues are content to be lapdogs.  That does not make the story coming from his Twitter feed tonight any less odd.

Claire Shipman's Husband Named New Obama Press Secretary.  The White House on Thursday named Jay Carney, the husband of ABC News reporter Claire Shipman, to be the new White House Press secretary.  Carney is also an ex-journalist, formally of Time magazine.  Will this appointment prove to be a conflict of interest for Shipman?  Will she continue to report on the Obama administration?

Obama's Been Skipping the White House Press Corps for Network and Social Media Softballs.  In noting the latest White House "hangout" with questions from YouTube users, Amie Parnes of The Hill noted that President Obama has failed to hold a press conference since early October — three months without engaging with White House reporters who might feel professional pressure to ask unexpected hardball questions.  Instead, Obama submits himself to softball sessions with ABC's Diane Sawyer or Barbara Walters.

Remember when no one understood why ABC asked about contraception at the NH Republican debate?  Remember when George Stephanopoulos, at the New Hampshire Republican debate on January 7, brought up and harped on whether the candidates thought states could ban contraception?  Everyone, at least on our side of the aisle, shook their heads in disbelief as to why Stephanopoulos was bringing up the issue. ... It's almost as if Stephanopoulos got the memo first.  Unless, of course, you believe in coincidences.

Creepy-crawlies for the evolved Obama.  That celebrated creepy-crawlie that often wanders up Chris Matthews' leg has jumped to another network, where the celebration of the president's coming-out party, such as it was, continues without surcease.  "Whatever people think about this issue," said George Stephanopoulos, co-host of the ABC-TV morning talk-show, "there's no denying when a president speaks out for the first time like that, it is history."  Replied Robin Roberts, his co-host and partner in grime:  "And let me tell you, George, I'm getting chills again.

ABC Portrays Obama Admin Aggressively Pursuing Security Leaks — Not As Possible Source of Them.  If an extraterrestrial had tuned into Good Morning America today and watched ABC News's report on national security leaks, he would have come away thinking the Obama administration was valiantly, aggressively pursuing the leakers.  ET wouldn't have learned that there is good reason to suspect that the source of the leaks ... is the Obama administration itself.

Once Again, ABC News and Team Obama Meet at the Marriage Altar.  Daniel Halper of The Weekly Standard reports that ABC campaign reporter Matthew Jaffe married Obama campaign deputy press secretary Katie Hogan in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin on Saturday [7/28/2012].  This would be the second ABC-Obama union, after OMB director Peter Orszag and ABC correspondent Bianna Golodgryga.  These camps are very cozy.

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.


The Obama team manipulates the media

For the most blatant recent example, read this.

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.

Latest Word on the Trail? I Take It Back.  The quotations come back redacted, stripped of colorful metaphors, colloquial language and anything even mildly provocative.  They are sent by e-mail from the Obama headquarters in Chicago to reporters who have interviewed campaign officials under one major condition:  the press office has veto power over what statements can be quoted and attributed by name. [...] Many journalists spoke about the editing only if granted anonymity, an irony that did not escape them.  No one said the editing altered the meaning of a quote.  The changes were almost always small and seemingly unnecessary, they said.

Proof! Establishment media controlled.  This may be the most important story broken by the New York Times in years.  What it means is this: When Americans read these reports — whether in newspapers, wire services or on the Internet — they are not really reading news stories at all.  They are reading approved, pre-packaged press releases from the government and politicians.  But, even worse, they are not labeled as such.  They are labeled as actual news.  That's how low the national press establishment has descended. [...] These so-called journalists are selling their ethical and moral souls for access to politicians.  And this practice raises expectations by politicians that they can routinely manipulate the press to their advantage.

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.

Obama WH Secret Phone Conferences Bear Fruit With TV Media's Limbaugh Attack.  As soon as the sun rose on the day after Limbaugh's CPAC appearance, three of the four of the phone call participants attacked Limbaugh with the same talking points.  It seems obvious that they coordinated their attack together in the Obama secret strategy session.  It is amazing that a president's staff can have such power over major media figures without a peep being heard from those that only months ago bashed former presidents over a perceived undue, even "dangerous," control of the media.

Ultra Secret Website for Behind Scenes Media Planning Sessions Revealed.  First came word of the daily secret planning session phone calls between Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and several highly placed Old Media types and now Politico has revealed the existence of a hush, hush web message board where denizens of the lefty media get together on a daily basis and plan how they will all cover the news for the great unwashed out there.

The MSM isn't liberal enough for Obama...
Obama seeks filter-free news.  The highest-profile moments in the new approach have been well-noted, such as the president giving an interview to progressive radio host Ed Schultz and Obama calling on a reporter from the liberal-leaning Huffington Post at his first news conference.  But those moves are only part of a much larger strategy aimed at communicating directly with audiences the White House believes are more sympathetic to the president's agenda — and one in which much of the work is being done by Obama's top advisers.

Obama has new flag frenzy.  Oh, say — can you see?  Look.  It's President Obama, and he's surrounded by American flags.  They're on the dais in star-spangled glory.  They're at the town-hall meeting and the news conference, in bold folds of red, white and blue.  The White House has rediscovered — or possibly reinvented — the patriotic cachet of Old Glory as a perfect frame for the new president.  That's the same president who once would not wear an American flag pin.  Things have changed.

The Editor says...
When you see American flags carefully placed behind Mr. Obama at his staged photo opportunities, it should be obvious that the presence of these flags has nothing to do with patriotic pride, especially given his earlier reluctance to show respect to the American flag.  Flags as big as basketball courts are commonly used to draw attention to used car dealerships.  In these cases, the American flag is just a prop whose only purpose is to make you (subconsciously) feel a little better about the ugly business at hand.

What Releasing the CIA Memos is Really About:  It's about controlling the news cycle, putting opponents on the defensive, and diverting attention away from other, more-timely battles underway.  We recently witnessed a similar tactic.  The release of the Department of Homeland Security's "rightwing extremism" report, dated April 7, offered the MSM a counterpoint to frame their minimum coverage of the April 15 Tea Parties. ... It's all about misdirection of public attention, and all sides of the media are conscious, or unconscious, facilitators of the ploy choreographed from inside the Obama administration.

Was Obama trying to run out the clock?  It's not uncharacteristic of this administration to run late.  But seeing that 28 minutes elapsed before Obama took the stage, you could make a case that the Obama team is trying to make it difficult on networks to carry former Vice President Cheney's speech.

How Obama's team ensures his messages get delivered properly.  Here's the new Obama communications wrinkle, which has former journalist David Axelrod's Chicago fingerprints all over it:  Unbeknownst to the invited writers, they've been classified politically, say, centrist in one group or more conservative or more liberal in another group.  That way the aides' presentations can be tailored to go down best with each group's ideological leanings.  Last week, as Ed [Morrissey] reports, the Obama communications team had two writer briefings going on in the White House simultaneously.  And you'll be surprised to learn the president managed to make surprise entries at both of them.

Obama Lifts Ban on Lobbyists! Back to Business as Usual.  Roll Call is reporting that during the typical Friday afternoon document dump — a practice used to hide actions that might prove somewhat embarrassing to the White House — the administration quietly announced that some of the former restrictions on lobbying ballyhooed about during the late campaign have been lifted.  And now, we have to wonder:  will the media notice this sudden change?  I mean, a whole day has gone by and so far only Roll Call has mentioned it.

If this is transparency, what's accountability?  The White House press corps is challenging the Obama administration's reliance on background briefings by unnamed officials — noting that the same officials tend to turn up soon after, delivering the same message on television.  And more to the point, didn't President Obama run on a promise of transparent government?

Obama Quietly Issues Statement on Terrorist Attack in Arkansas.  After two days of silence, President Obama issued a statement Wednesday on the shooting of two U.S. soldiers by a Muslim militant in Arkansas — but the White House didn't even email the statement to its list of national reporters.  Rather, the White House appears to have quietly released this statement to a local AP bureau in Arkansas...

Barack Obama and the White House woo The New York Times.  [Scroll down]  One part of Obama's Times fixation is strategy.  For all the proliferation of news outlets, Obama aides believe the paper still has an outsize ability to shape perceptions among political elites and other journalists.  But part of the relationship is more complicated, according to some close observers, flowing from a cultural affinity that makes Obamaites crave the validation that comes from being written about by the Times.

The morning conference call and Democrat media manipulation.  Every morning, a group of old friends have a nice chat.  ABC's George Stephanopoulos, CNN's James Carville, CNN commentator Paul Begala, and Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel have a wide ranging conference call, usually starting just before dawn.  Democrat Pollster Stan Greenberg is a frequent participant.  They examine current events and how they fit into the new administrations policies.  They determine how to best get their message to the public.

Obama manipulates the media.
Do You Want Your OTV?  [Scroll down]  After the event, President Obama went to the White House basketball court to shoot hoop with the Lady Huskies.  The White House press corps was not allowed to attend. ... Now we know why:  Obama White House officials decided to do their own media report on the visit, complete with cuts, interviews, and chyrons identifying who's speaking. ... Do Obama White House officials think their media coverage isn't flattering enough?

The Editor says...
Attention White House reporters — here is a quick and easy solution to your problem:  When the White House provides their own sanitized media coverage, don't put it on the air!

NYT/CBS Stock Pro-Obamacare Poll With Obama Voters.  Realizing that Barack Obama's healthcare initiative has hit some roadblocks in Congress, the good folks at CBS News and the New York Times figured they'd help it along by creating a new poll on the subject that WAY oversampled people who voted for Obama.  Although the then junior senator from Illinois received 53 percent of the votes last November, NYT/CBS surveyed almost twice as many Obama voters as McCain voters.

The President Packs the Press Corps.  During the eight years of the Bush administration, liberal outlets such as the Huffington Post often accused the White House of planting questioners in news conferences to ask pre-planned questions.  At this afternoon's news conference, President Obama fielded a pre-planned question asked by a planted questioner — from the Huffington Post. ... [Nico] Pitney asked his question, as arranged.  Reporters in the room looked at each other in amazement at the stagecraft they had just witnessed.  White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel looked at the first row of TV correspondents and grinned.

Stay Tuned for More of 'The Obama Show'.  [Scroll down]  And, as it turned out, he [Pitney] was not the only prearranged questioner at yesterday's show.  Later, Obama passed over the usual suspects to call on Macarena Vidal of the Spanish-language EFE news agency.  The White House called Vidal in advance to see whether she was coming and arranged for her to sit in a seat usually assigned to a financial trade publication.  She asked about Chile and Colombia.  A couple of more questions and Obama called it a day.

Isn't Obama Planting a Huffington Post Question Worse Than Bush's 'Gannongate'?  [Scroll down]  Will these networks find it even more scandalous that the Obama White House much more explicitly pre-arranged a question from the left-wing website The Huffington Post, and allowed their reporter Nico Pitney to have the second question of the entire event, like they were the second most important "news" outlet in America?

White House Denies HuffPo Set-Up.  The White House defended its treatment of HuffPo blogger Nico Pitney at a presidential press conference on Tuesday. ... The White House has made a point of selecting journalists that are not part of the mainstream media for questions at his press conference and that has made even an Obama loving media suspicious of his motives and methods.

Obama presses the press into service.  [Scroll down]  Pitney, play-acting right along, did his part, beginning, "I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian."  He could have said, "I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian, because that's what you asked me to do and because I really, really want you to like me."  But he had more sense than that.

Decision-based evidence making.  The Obama administration yesterday [6/16/2009] released its blockbuster global-warming propaganda document, Global Climate Change Impacts on the United States.  It's a doozy, filled with colour graphics, maps and dramatic pictures.

Helen Thomas: Not Even Nixon Tried to Control the Media Like Obama.  Following a testy exchange during today's briefing with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas told CNSNews.com that not even Richard Nixon tried to control the press the way President Obama is trying to control the press. ... Thomas said she was especially concerned about the arrangement between the Obama Administration and a writer from the liberal Huffington Post Web site.

White House Press Corps Happy to Attend Barack Obama's Off-the-Record BBQ.  Reporters from roughly 30 television networks, newspapers, magazines, and web sites celebrated the Fourth of July with Barack Obama at the White House last weekend.  Why didn't you know that?  Because they were sworn to secrecy.

The Cost of Controlling The Press.  Barack Obama's White House is spending more than $80,000 a week to staff its old and new media offices.  Add the price of speechwriters and the White House communications tab reaches nearly $100,000 a week, or nearly $5 million a year-and that is for salaries alone.  Based on the coverage the President has garnered so far, it is money well spent.

A Sponsorship Scandal at The Post.  The Washington Post's ill-fated plan to sell sponsorships of off-the-record "salons" was an ethical lapse of monumental proportions.  Publisher Katharine Weymouth and Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli have now taken full responsibility for what was envisioned as a series of 11 intimate dinners to discuss public policy issues.  For a fee of up to $25,000, underwriters were guaranteed a seat at the table with lawmakers, administration officials, think tank experts, business leaders and the heads of associations.

What's really behind Obama's sudden plea for troubled health reforms today.  Friday afternoons and evenings — as we've mentioned here previously — are usually a dumping ground for political news its originators do not want noticed much.  Especially entering warm summer weekends.  The flip side of that adage is that there's rarely much competition for the news at those times.  Tah-dah!  Not by accident today President Barack Obama (despite the shattering death of his beloved teleprompter earlier this week) staged an unscheduled media availability to insert himself into the news.  Not much competition, so he got lotsa coverage.

Obama Complains About the News Cycle but Manipulates It.  It has become his common lament.  Challenged about difficulties with his economic or legislative programs, President Obama complains about the tyranny of "the news cycle," pronouncing the words with an air of above-it-all disdain for the impatience and fecklessness of today's media culture.  Yet after six months in office, perhaps no other president has been more attuned to, or done more to dominate, the news cycle he disparages.

Rahmbo browbeat network heads to carry Obama's health care presser.  It is the simple exercise of power.  Obama's got more of it than the TV networks.  And if you have someone in the White House perfectly willing to exercise that power by making implied threats, there isn't much even giant corporations can do to deny Obama what he wants.

Baskin Becomes 13th MSM Journalist to Spin Through Revolving Door for Obama.  Roberta Baskin, a veteran of CBS News, ABC News, PBS and Washington, DC's ABC affiliate, with a stint at the Center for Public Integrity mixed in, "will join the Department of Health and Human Service's office of inspector general as a senior communications adviser in mid-August," Washington Post "Federal Eye" blogger Ed O'Keefe reported late Monday [8/2/2009].

Media Blackout on Obama eligibility dates back to November.  The Northeast Intelligence Network and Canada Free Press are in possession of extremely sensitive investigative documents, including a stunning written admission by a nationally known talk show host stating that he was threatened with his career — or worse — should he talk about the issue of Barack Hussein Obama's birth records to a national audience.  This document was obtained on December 10, 2008, and provides explicit detail of a "gag order" imposed on this host before and immediately following the national election last November.

Liberals' birther obsession:
It's the left-wing, not the GOP, that's pumping up the story.  You could be forgiven for thinking that a serious campaign is afoot — aided and abetted by the national Republican Party — to question Barack Obama's citizenship. ... It is not Obama's right-wing opponents, however, who are devoting the most attention to this obscure, Internet-driven "movement" ... Rather, it's liberals, bent on portraying their conservative opponents as extremists — and changing the subject to help a President under increasing scrutiny for the substance of his policies — who are driving this story.

Did someone mention President Obama's birth certificate again?

Firing up the leftist base.  I've been watching the media onslaught aimed at these townhall protesters, and now think I understand why we saw a huge pickup in coverage on the birth certificate controversy over the last 2 weeks.  Media Matters and other 527s, like Moveon, send daily communiqués to left-leaning media with their issues highlighted, and talking points suggested.  Clearly, they decided to hype attention to the birthers over the past couple of weeks, so that they could now use them to try to discredit other legitimate protest, especially that occurring over the health care takeover.

Did someone mention tea parties again?

Rahm's Media Muscle:  Is it just us or is there something wrong with the White House dictating news coverage to advance the president's medical insurance agenda? We thought this sort of thing happened only in Venezuela.

"Miss Information".  [Linda Douglass] makes no attempt whatsoever to prove her assertion that Obama's comments were out of context or irrelevant.  And that's what's sort of interesting to me.  Her rebuttal technique is truly Obamaesque, in that she does what Obama himself does:  Quotes Obama as proof that Obama is always right.

Glenn Beck Loses Advertisers Over 'Racist' Remark.  White House Involved? Glenn Beck has lost advertisers on his TV show after calling President Obama "a racist" in the context of the Henry Louis Gates arrest controversy.  The pressure on advertisers has become a politically charged debate about the right to free speech, censorship and what constitutes hate speech.  Conservatives are questioning if the campaign against Beck is connected to the White House staff.

Just Make Stuff Up:  President Obama's war on the truth.  Why has President Obama developed a general disregard for the truth, in a manner far beyond typical politicians who run one way and govern another, or hide failures and broadcast successes?  First, he has confidence that the media will not be censorious and will simply accept his fiction as fact.  A satirist, after all, could not make up anything to match the obsequious journalists who bow to their president, proclaim him a god, and receive sexual-like tingles up their appendages.

Barack Obama doesn't care what you think.  What I am concerned about, and warning everyone about, is the media machine that uses these organized events to broadcast the agenda. Framed differently, these activities aren't meant to convince attendees that healthcare is good; these activities are meant to manufacture the news, spread propaganda tropes, and over-inflate the image of the pro-socialized healthcare forces.  PR stunts.  The Obama modus operandi is to make his goons look bigger than they are.  These are the people who will make a group of twenty conservatives appear diminutive with a far-away camera angle, and then give individual interviews to all three liberal attendees.

Obama the Omnipresent.  Even by the norms of his ubiquity, Mr. Obama has been on an especially prodigious media binge lately, pitching his health care plan seemingly everywhere but the Food Channel and Fox News.  He will sit for interviews on Sunday with ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and Univision, and hit the "Late Show With David Letterman" on Monday (he is scheduled to be the show's only guest), to go with his recent run in the print media (Men's Health), on the Web (Bloomberg) and on cable news (CNBC).

On-the-air prez seems like endless 'infomercial'.  During his first eight months in office, President Obama has sat down for three times as many television interviews as his most recent two predecessors combined. ... "He's turning the presidency into an infomercial," warned former White House speechwriter Matt Latimer.

Manipulation of another communications medium:
Capital Hill Switchboard Illegally Being Used to Push Obamacare?  If you call one of the numbers that leads you to the switchboard for Congress, the number you'd call to be put through to your Congressman or Senator's office, you get a short message selling Obama's healthcare policies before being transferred to the switchboard operator.  This should be the sort of story the Old Media would investigate fully.  But will it?

Obama's Olympic bid stagecraft.  Sixteen days ago, Richard Baehr noted speculation that President Obama would make a last-minute dramatic trip to Copenhagen this week, to pitch the case for Chicago hosting the 2016 Olympics.  The publicly-announced plan had been for Michelle to represent Chicago's bid.  Because other contenders were sending their top leaders, it seemed as if Obama were letting Chicago down.  Unless you took the cynical view and saw this all as dramatic framing of an upcoming event, so as to maximize propaganda benefits.

President Obama — We've Got Questions.  Alessandra Stanley, reporting for the New York Times on President Obama's Sunday talk show grand slam with same-day interviews on CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS and Univision, commented on his "remarkably overt display of media management."  On talk shows that are known for their challenging questions, Stanley observed, "No one shifted an armchair, moved a flower arrangement or asked an unexpected question."  Media management is not what America needs.

The Most Transparent Administration Ever?  Not at DOJ.  Is the Department of Justice engaging in fraud, or is it simply trying to hide its propaganda?  Those of you wondering how DOJ uses your tax dollars to enforce our nation's laws might be interested to learn that Eric Holder has apparently hired former Democratic campaign bloggers to work at the department in what appears to be a secret propaganda unit.

Obama Controls Your Televison Set.  Next week the networks will coordinate their shows' story-lines to promote volunteerism. ... You know how folks always say:  "If you don't like what you see, just change the channel."  Well, clearly next week that won't be an option.  It's going to be a full-court press... nowhere to hide.

The Editor says...
You have another option that's really quite refreshing:  TURN IT OFF!

Rush Rammed.  The partisanship and dishonesty of the American media is a familiar story and a slightly pathetic one.  What makes the ongoing assault on Rush disturbing is that the White House is a participant in it.  As Time magazine and others have reported, a small group of Democratic operatives and media figures — Stanley Greenberg, Paul Begala, and James Carville — have colluded with members of the Obama administration — Rahm Emanuel and Robert Gibbs — in a campaign to demonize [Rush] Limbaugh, using him as a proxy target for congressional Republicans.

Personal Fouls.  The Left has opened up a new front in its ongoing efforts to censor conservative voices and to ban conservative political thought from polite society.  Their latest target:  Rush Limbaugh, who is now being viciously smeared as a black-hating racist.  Of course, the Left has viciously smeared Rush and other conservatives for some time now.  That's their modus operandi; it's how they operate.

White House aide says Barack Obama team 'controlled' the media.  Anita Dunn, a senior White House aide, has boasted of how Barack Obama's presidential campaign managed to "absolutely control" the press during the 2008 election.  The top campaign strategist who has shot to attention recently as President Obama's main attack dog against Fox News, the conservative-leaning cable network, was speaking at a conference in the Dominican Republic in January.  "Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn't absolutely control," she said.

Sotomayor Says White House Even Picked Out Her Clothes.  Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's nomination process was so controlled that the White House even approved her clothes, she told Yalies when she appeared at her 30th Yale Law School reunion on Saturday [10/17/2009].

Anita Dunn:  Working 'around that filter'.  White Houses lately, and successful campaigns as well, have prided themselves on "media management" — with carefully planned campaign and official events aimed at steering "around that filter" of the national media and delivering a controlled public message.

Community service as a TV theme.  More than 100 programs on ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and cable networks will spotlight the idea of giving back, through story lines or public service announcements.

The Editor says...
Giving back.  Phooey!  Don't let anyone twist your arm and badger you to "give back to the community."  The "community" already comes and takes what it wants — right out of your paycheck.  Take a good look at your paycheck stub and add up all the money you've "contributed" to FICA, Social Security, and the welfare state.

Obama and his 'Enemy' Fetish.  There's nothing in the world like freedom of speech, so long as the speaker booms out your praises, sprinkles his remarks with words and expressions such as "hope," "change" and "the fierce urgency of now."  In such a case, welcome to the White House.  Can we pour you a glass of lemonade, give you an autographed photo of the president?  You others out there — shut up!

The Censorious Sound on the Left.  Team Obama's idea of "straight news" is that which goes straight from Rahm Emanuel's cellphone into Stephanopoulos's mouth.  Team Obama's idea of news without "perspective" is Brian Williams broadcasting publicity stunts like Obama buying hamburgers for his staff and the "news" of the day is how many apples can be spotted at the White House.  The only thing in their way is the emerging alternative media, which is why they're out to destroy Rush Limbaugh.

What would Mao do?  "What would Mao do?" seems to be the guiding question in White House communications strategy.  [Anita] Dunn bragged that during the 2008 presidential campaign, "very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn't absolutely control."  The Obama White House continues this drive for control using the tools of government, seeking to harness all means of communication and organize a Cultural Revolution Lite.  A push for control is revealed in attempts to organize Hollywood to help convey party messages and to use the National Endowment for the Arts to promote Obama policy initiatives.  The Federal Communications Commission is considering content regulations on radio stations under the guise of promoting "diversity."

The White House Takes a Chokehold on the Media.  [Scroll down]  After all nothing can be allowed to interfere with the White House's media echo chamber in which reporters repeat White House talking points to the public and back to the White House again.  That is not journalism.  It is very literally propaganda. ... The Obama Administration has tried to create its own economic reality, its own military reality, its own diplomatic reality and above all else, its own spin reality.  And to do that, to make sure that the public hears nothing but the White House talking points day in and day out, you need control of the press.

Top White House Official Says Obama Team 'Controlled' Media Coverage During Campaign.  White House Communications Director Anita Dunn is seen in a video from January talking about how the Obama campaign exercised absolute "control" over media coverage.

Anita Dunn:  How We Created Obama's Cult of Personality.  With a compliant media willing to focus on his "rock star" personality, Obama got away without having to address many of his questionable friends that never even made it into the public discussion.  Seeing how well this method worked on Obama's church, the campaign decided to use his charm as an answer for most everything else. ... Most Obama supporters had no idea there was a purposeful strategy of fabricating an intimate relationship.  Yet once again, the media chose to ignore all warning signs and encourage people to get swept off their feet.

The Volunteerism Scandals Hollywood Won't Be Broadcasting.  Hollywood hearts Obama.  Obama hearts government-directed national service.  That is why you won't be able to change the TV channel all week without getting lectured about the need to get off the couch and Do Something.  (After your favorite shows are over, of course.)  Creeped out?  You should be.

Lies That Are Disputed.  I remember, as a very young person, the august comparative tranquillity of the Eisenhower era, when the president requested national air time only for matters of indisputable national interest.  He never abused this privilege, and there was no call for equal time.

Does Obama want to control the message or the media?  Controlling the message, for any White House, is hard work. ... It's a laborious process that's full of traps and pitfalls.  And the Obama administration has no use for any of it.  It would rather control the media instead.

Using Dead Soldiers as Props.  The photo-oped dead/wounded soldier routine is one of Obama's favorites.  Back in July 2008, Obama cancelled a planned trip to visit wounded troops at Rammstein and Landstuhl U.S. military bases in Germany because, as MSNBC reported, Obama "could not bring any media.  Only military photographers would be permitted to record Obama's visit."  Dead soldiers are not props for Army diversity, props for health care reform or props for Obama's perennial campaigning.  They are men and women who make the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our nation.  Their memories should not be tarnished by cheap politicking by cheap and tawdry politicians.

Obama's Door-to-Door Sales Team.  President Obama's 13 million-strong campaign e-mail list has been transformed into a mass political operation dedicated to enacting his agenda — along with its apparent readiness to help elect Democratic candidates and eventually re-elect the president.

Obama's Doubletalk on Political Dissent.  While the kowtower-in-chief's press shop feeds paeans to free speech into Obama's globetrotting teleprompter, the White House is still waging war on vocal foes at home.  Obama has lectured his critics in Washington to stop talking and "get out of the way."  He has stacked his carefully staged town halls with partisan stooges and campaign plants throughout the year.

'Overexposed' Obama begins to duck the WH press corps.  After months of what some critics called overexposure, President Obama has of late avoided questions from the White House press corps at large, closing the Oval Office to traditionally informal question-and-answer sessions with reporters and pulling back from the fast pace of news conferences he established when taking office.  The president, whose job-approval ratings have been on a steady slide, hasn't held a formal news conference in 19 weeks, since July 22.

Duck-and-Run Obama.  President Obama's athletic prowess is becoming a real advantage in office as he recently has taken the duck-and-run approach to the media.  Instead of defending himself in front of the open microphone, he is dispatching his cronies to defend his policy positions.  Our commander-in-chief isn't living up to his campaign promise of presidential access and transparency.

President Obama Names Transgender Appointee to Commerce Department.  President Obama recently named Amanda Simpson to be a Senior Technical Advisor to the Commerce Department. ... While Simpson is clearly one of the first transgender presidential appointees, Democratic officials say they're unsure if she is the very first one.  The White House had no comment on her appointment.

Meet Obama's transgender appointee.  The Obama administration's appointment of Amanda Simpson to a relatively low-profile spot as advisor to the Commerce Department felt intentionally buried over the New Year's news cycle.  Why?  Simpson, who will be working in the Bureau of Industry and Security, used to be a man.

Phony Fruits in the Obama White House Garden.  Hold on to your hoe.  It turns out that the fruits and veggies used in a special edition of the popular Food Network TV show "Iron Chef America" featuring first lady Michelle Obama did not, in fact, come from the White House garden.  Could there be a more deliciously fitting symbol of Obama White House fakery than Garden-Gate?

President Obama's Official Twitterer Connected To MoveOn.org.  The woman that poses as Barack Obama on all his social networking websites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter is connected to the far-left organization MoveOn.org.  For those scratching their heads, the President in theory is a member of these websites.  However, he obviously isn't responsible for typing in the little messages that are going out to his followers almost 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Obama Seeks New Social Media Mouthpiece.  The Democratic National Committee and Organizing for America — the successor organization to Obama for America — are seeking a "social networks manager" to oversee Obama's accounts on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.  The ideal new hire, according to the official job description, will possess "strong, sharp and personable" writing skills, as well as the ability to craft messages that "move people to act" and managing multiple "complex" projects.

Organizing the Coffee Party.  When I heard about Annabel Park's grassroots coffee party movement and her background in the Obama campaign it piqued my curiosity.  The two most recent Obamaganda projects, pro-Obama letters to the editor (see Ellie Light) and the even less successful pro-Obamacare push on the conservative talk radio airwaves, were reliant on individual action supported and inspired by the future former president's propaganda machine.  The coffee party movement represents a shift back towards the sort of large scale community organizing that helped Team Obama win in 2008.

The Coffee Party Con:  The new and much-publicized Coffee Party movement sports a fairy-tale narrative about a spontaneous uprising of concerned Americans appalled at the Tea Parties and determined to restore civility. ... No thanks to the liberal media, we know that its founder, Annabel Park, is an Obama-supporter, filmmaker (she made one for the Obama campaign), and former New York Times strategy analyst.  In other words, she's a progressive activist.

Coffee Party 'founder' in Astroturf hole, keeps digging.  Annabel Park, the purported creator of the Coffee Party movement does damage control with the help of CNN, claiming that her movement, aided by Soros-funded organizations and planned at RootsCamp, a left wing organizing workshop held at the teachers union NEA Headquarters, is actually a spontaneous, self-organizing movement.

Transparency?  Are you kidding?  The Obama White House did not allow the press to cover the president's signing of the executive order created to win Rep. Bart Stupak's vote for Obamacare.  At the daily briefing, reporters wanted to know why no press photographer or reporter was allowed in.  Press secretary Robert Gibbs told them they should be happy with a picture from the White House photographer, Pete Souza — a photo produced and selected by the White House.  It will be a "nice picture," Gibbs assured reporters.

Silence that speaks volumes:  blackout as Israel's leader leaves White House.  Two separate meetings between President Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, failed to produce so much as an official photograph as a chill settled over US-Israeli relations and secrecy shrouded any efforts to repair them.

Obviously President Obama is no friend of Israel.

The next move of the Alinsky left.  [Scroll down]  Why did these congresspeople, including Emmanuel Cleaver (the alleged "spitee", who actually walked too close to a protester shouting "kill the bill" and got sprayed), Barney Frank, and Nancy Pelosi deliberately march into the demonstration and confront the Tea Partiers?  After all, wasn't it Nancy herself who said she was "frightened" by these supposedly violent people?  Is it possible that they wanted to provoke a reaction from the crowd to be used by the media to demonize the Tea Party movement (i.e., "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it")?  Is it also possible that when there was nothing sufficiently provoked by the lawmakers' confrontation, they decided to fabricate it?  I believe their previous record of untruthfulness supports this hypothesis.

Left Playing the Hate Game.  In reality, this kind of commentary is nothing new.  We see it every time conservatives have any political momentum whatsoever.  The idea is that by shouting "racist," these liberal columnists can make their opponents shut up.  But this is a very angry and polarized political climate.

Is the White House press corps necessary?  Has the YouTube presidency pre-empted the journalists who cover the White House every day?  If you can get the news directly from the president and his Twittering West Wing staff, why do you need the press corps?

Is Obama Making the MSM Obsolete?  The White House Press Corps and the MSM are becoming very nervous.  The White House has discovered that they can get their message out to the public without the "filter" of the media to slow them down.  Continuing to operate under the template that it is their job to make Obama a success, the MSM has been completely unwilling to call him out on this.  Alternatively, President Bush was excoriated by the MSM for avoiding the press for any extended period of time throughout his two terms of office.

Obama leaves WH without press, breaking protocol.  President Barack Obama quietly breached years of protocol on Saturday morning [4/10/2010] by leaving the White House without the press with him.

Presidential Motorcade Leaves Press Corps In the Dust... Again.  President Obama caused quite a stir on Saturday after he left the White House without the traveling press corps, but it's not the first time he's slipped away without them.

The Judas Kiss, the Brutus Stab, the Obama bow.  [Scroll down]  Obama's bow-wow in portraiture far outshines the hardly ever seen Portuguese Water Dog, Bo, last seen all over the Internet in April of 2009.  The lens have captured Obama's subservient bows to Saudi King Abdullah; Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko and even to Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio.  Photo ops one and all.

Obama Attends Non-Existent Soccer Game?  Reading the story about President Obama breaking tradition and ditching the presidential press pool over the weekend to watch one of his daughter's soccer games, it appears harmless, right?  Not so.  It is rather disturbing when you dissect it.

Why Is the 'Master Communicator' Ducking the Media?  [Scroll down]  During the same 265-day time period when he studiously avoided press conferences, Obama delivered dozens of prepared speeches to friendly audiences, most to pitch his pet project, "Health Care Reform."  Obama also granted dozens of interviews, the overwhelming majority of them, not surprisingly, to MSM interviewers sympathetic to his policies.

'Most Transparent White House Ever' Prevents Reporters From Covering Protest.  While mainstream media reporters are generally pretty supportive of the Obama administration, they bristle, and rightly so, at incidents where the administration is less than transparent or actively seeks to impede journalists from working.

Most transparent White House ever...  Police chased reporters away from the White House and closed Lafayette Park today in response to a gay rights protest in which several service members in full uniform handcuffed themselves to the White House gate to protest "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."  People who have covered the White House for years tell me that's an extremely unusual thing to do in an area that regularly features protests.

Red Dawn alert?  Cranky policeman boots reporters from White House protest.  A protest outside the White House?  Yawn.  They happen all the time.  Usually they're ignored.  What's the best way to get some attention for it?  Don't let the press cover it.  Even better, have some loudmouth policeman boot the reporters away.  But whatever you do, make sure videocameras are rolling.  If this was the plan, it was executed flawlessly Tuesday afternoon [4/20/2010].

From 'The Front Page' To a Flock Of Sheep:  Reporters, Then and Now.  Petty tyrants love to shove other people around, but when those hired to "protect and serve" start acting like they're armed bureaucrats who don't have to answer questions from the rabble, then we're in trouble.  Especially when it was not an emergency, and lives were not in danger.  There had better be a pretty darn good reason from barring citizens, and their representatives in the media, from a public park, and this sure doesn't seem like it.

Media Kept Well Away as Obama Clashes With Gays and Lesbians in Washington, L.A..  President Obama has had two run-ins already this week with gay and lesbian activists  — and judging by his and his staff's reaction  — he doesn't like the challenge coming from his left flank.  So, naturally, he responded by excluding the media.

An Incurious Media or a Four-Leaf-Clover President.  Maybe the timing of the Securities and Exchange Commission's fraud case against Goldman Sachs was legitimate.  Maybe the arrest of nine Hutaree members for seditious conspiracy and a host of other crimes was also properly timed.  If that's the case, then we need to start calling Obama the four-leaf-clover president because every time he needs a villain, the government picks one.

Obama shoos press during coffee stop.  The president of the United States likes his pie tart, his coffee stale and his reporters out in the parking lot.

Why reporters are down on President Obama:  Obama and the media actually have a surprisingly hostile relationship — as contentious on a day-to-day basis as any between press and president in the past decade, reporters who cover the White House say.  Reporters say the White House is thin-skinned, controlling, eager to go over their heads and stingy with even basic information.  All White Houses try to control the message.  But this White House has pledged to be more open than its predecessors, and reporters feel it doesn't live up to that pledge in several key areas.

Up in the Air, Obama Meets the Press.  President Obama made a rare appearance in the back of Air Force One to chat with reporters on Wednesday.  The president, who does not often chat with his "press pool," came back ostensibly to share the news that he was congratulating Republicans and Democrats for moving a financial regulation bill to the senate floor.  But then he stayed and took five questions.  For nine minutes.

President Obama Makes Rare Visit to Press Cabin.  President Obama strayed from his normal routine Wednesday [4/28/2010] and made a surprise visit to the press cabin aboard Air Force One upon his return from Quincy, Illinois where he wrapped up a two-day swing through the Midwest. ... It was rare for reporters traveling with the president to have this kind of access to Mr. Obama, who has become notoriously inaccessible to the press.

The Editor says...
Notice that Mr. Obama controls access by the press in a most selfish manner.  He appears unexpectedly while the reporters are eating and only stays a few minutes.

Obama's war on the press gets some ink.  Richard Wolffe, a former Newsweek reporter who wrote a very favorable book about President Obama's 2008 campaign, is getting special treatment from the White House according to a Politico story.  And according to Examiner White House correspondent Julie Mason, Wolffe was even allowed into Obama's health care summit, which could barely accommodate the pool.  In a catalogue of the various grievances, members of the press express exasperation with the administration's insistence on providing access to sympathetic voices, like Wolffe and the New York Times, while limiting contact with others.

Obama's Dysfunctional Marriage to the Press.  It has all the trappings of a dysfunctional marriage.  The press wants to communicate with Obama via direct questions, but he's aloof.  The press wants behind-the-scenes access, but Obama is too busy feeding exclusives and scoops to his mistress, The Gray Lady, and he doesn't even try to hide the affair.  He gives the quiet treatment to The Wall Street Journal and scolds Fox News — and in so doing telegraphs a message to other journalists:  criticize me, and we'll freeze you out.  Or worse.

Never let a crisis go to waste.
Obama Heading to Gulf Coast for Update on Oil Spill.  President Obama will go to the Gulf Coast in the next 48 hours for a firsthand assessment on efforts to contain the massive oil spill from an offshore drilling rig, a White House official said Saturday [5/1/2010].

Elena Kagan White House "Interview" Riles Reporters.  The White House today [5/11/2010] posted on its website a video allowing Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan to speak "in her own words" about her personal history and perspective. ... While the White House seems to believe the American people deserve to hear from Kagan, it has not made her available to reporters.

Nothing to see here:  Kagan "interview" just another infomercial.  It's standard practice around the White House (going back administrations) for any big nominee pending confirmation to stay away from interviews and unscripted public utterances until the voting is over.  It keeps things tidy and minimizes variables.  No biggie.  The Obama administration, however, made SCOTUS nominee Elena Kagan available for an interview — by White House staffers. ... It's just another campaign commercial, masquerading as openness.

Increasingly Opaque White House Insulates Kagan From Press Corps.  In the latest example of a pattern of opacity, the White House has cut off the press's access to Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.  Kagan has extensive ties to journalists, which only serves as a testament to this administration's determination to control the message on its major initiatives, including Kagan's nomination.

Want to Talk to Kagan's Family?  Permission Denied.  White Houses traditionally put a muzzle on their Supreme Court nominees, to keep them from saying anything that might jeopardize Senate confirmation.  But the Obama White House has taken it one step further.  It is limiting, if not blocking, access to the nominee's family.

Obama doesn't take questions at Freedom of Press Act signing.  After the signing of the Freedom of Press Act on Monday, President Obama declined to take any questions from the press.  During a pooled press event in the Oval Office, President Obama was asked if he would take a couple questions.  "You're certainly free to ask the question," Obama told the reporters in the room.  "I won't be answering..."

Obama signs bill to encourage press freedoms, then refuses press questions.  An amazing scene Monday in the Oval Office of the administration that's raising opacity to new densities.

Obama Turns His Back On the Press.  At a ceremony to sign a bill promoting press freedom around the world on Monday [5/17/2010], President Obama refused to take questions from reporters.  "I'm not doing a press conference today," he told Chip Reid of CBS News, "but we'll be seeing you guys during the course of the week."  So when the president hosted a "news conference" in the Rose Garden with the president of Mexico on Wednesday, Mr. Reid thought maybe this time Mr. Obama would take questions.

Obama News Conference:  One Question, Two Reporters.  Obama has not held a full-scale, White House press conference since July [2009].

Obama Avoids Tough Questions from Press, Again.  [Scroll down]  So-called "press conferences" with foreign leaders usually allow for only two questions from the White House press corps and two from foreign reporters.  But today [5/19/2010] he said there was time for only one from each side.  And in what I suspect was a White House effort to assure that the questioning was limited to immigration and other issues of U.S.-Mexico concern, he called on the Univision reporter from the U.S. side.  So if his goal was to avoid answering any tough questions about yesterday's elections, or the oil spill in the Gulf, or financial regulation, or Iran, or Afghanistan — he succeeded.

Obama's (Axelrod's) Choreographed Media Blackout.  The "most open and transparent" president in American history is still playing hide-and-seek with the press, and even the liberal New York Times has begun to notice it, as indicated by this headline:  "Obama Turns His Back On the Press."  If the mainstream media were not so ideologically wedded to Obama's big-government agenda, they would be doing more than pointing out his secrecy and hypocrisy with the occasional headline.

Media Are In Love With Obama Despite His Contempt For Them.  National Review's Rich Lowry on Saturday's [5/22/2010] "Fox News Watch" noted a bizarre relationship between Barack Obama and the media:  "they're in love with the guy and he has contempt for them."  Host Jon Scott started the discussion by mentioning the peculiar irony of the President on Monday signing the Press Freedom Act while refusing to take any questions from media members at the event.

Fawning press now gets cold shoulder from Obama.  Will Barack Obama go an entire year without holding a formal news conference?  He's getting close:  The president's last full-scale session with the press was on July 22, 2009, which was 307 days ago.  When Obama last held a big news conference, there had not yet been terrorist attacks at Fort Hood, Detroit, and Times Square.  Scott Brown was an unknown Massachusetts state senator.  There was no national health care bill, much less national health care law.

Obama Can Treat Media with Contempt Since He Knows They'll Always Be 'On His Side'.  The Washington press corps "have only themselves to blame" for President Obama refusing to answer their questions at White House events, exemplified by how he hasn't held a press conference in ten months, Washington Examiner chief political correspondent Byron York contended in his Tuesday column, "Fawning press now gets cold shoulder from Obama."  After all, "Obama treats them with contempt because he knows that when big tests come, they've always been on his side.  There's no reason for him to think they won't be there in the future."

BP paid workers $12-per-hour to be props for the photo ops.  Has it really come to this?  Yahoo News' Brett Michael Dykes reports that BP paid busloads of temporary cleanup workers to show up as stage props for President Obama's visit to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill cleanup operations on Grand Isle.

Limited Media Access to Oil Spill?  Media organizations say they are being allowed only limited access to areas impacted by the Gulf oil spill through restrictions on plane and boat traffic that are making it difficult to document the worst spill in U.S. history.

Obama and Media Minions Inspire Violence.  Most assuredly, the tea parties are not about racism or hate.  The truth is quite the opposite.  The tea parties are about love; love for the greatest nation on the planet and a fervent desire not to see it transformed into something unrecognizable.  The Tea Party Movement is no more complicated than that.  So where did the New Black Panther Party get the erroneous idea that the tea party patriots are, as Janeane Garofalo says, "a bunch of redneck racist against a black president"?  The unfortunate answer is the Obama media machine.

FTC draft study proposes massive bailout of newspapers.  The Obama FTC is attempting to commit the liberal press to permanent, government-run life support, with the federal monolith and the state-funded press each supporting the other in perpetuity.  Let's see, raise taxes, reduce competition, expand government, drain the profit, control the news... Music to Obama's ears.

DNC, Obama Now Astroturfing Talk Radio.  The shameless media manipulators at the DNC have a new campaign designed to promote Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court.  As with previous campaigns, the "Kagan for Justice Action Center" is run via a special website set up by Organizing for America.  It encourages people to write letters to the editors of newspapers nationwide (And we can presume that, as before, local newspapers will publish DNC talking points without realizing it).

Another Round of Obamacare Obamaganda.  As soon as Obama can spare the time to take a break from entertaining himself with publicly funded rock 'n' roll parties, he'll begin an Obamaganda campaign to convince the stubbornly unsophisticated majority that Obamacare is the panacea for not only their health needs but also the nation's financial difficulties.  I wish I were being facetious.  The first stop on his tour will be Wheaton, Md., where he'll conduct a nationally televised stunt with senior citizens timed to coordinate with the mailing of the first batch of his magnanimous $250 rebate checks to Medicare beneficiaries to help pay for their medicines.

There's a pipe spewing oil into the gulf, so let's build more windmills.  Obama, the first modern president to pass his first full year in office without addressing the country from his historic desk, had the setting right.  Just back from a day-and-a-half on the gulf coast listening, reassuring, talking tourism, eating seafood.  He wore the proper suit, had the requisite flags and family photos in the background.

Obama's disastrous Gulf disaster team.  [Scroll down]  Politico's Mike Allen channels West Wing thought this way:  The Gulf gusher is a battle we can't win.  So we had to make this tragedy about something bigger than the liveshot of spewing oil.  So having surrendered on the challenge of stopping the oil, Obama tried to redirect the public's attention away from the spill and onto the political debate over a cap-and-trade bill.

Censors In, Liberty Out.  [Scroll down]  Thus, as Anthony G. Martin has opined, it is clear that the nomination of Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court is intended to bolster the Obama's intention to censor anything he chooses.  Obama, the dictator would come full circle.  Why aren't the journalists up in arms about this?  Don't they see that this is yet another of Obama's serial double-crossing strategy?  He smooth talks a group, invites them into his lair, and then tears them apart when they are no longer useful to him.

White House Enacts Rules Inhibiting Media From Covering Oil Spill.  The White House Thursday [7/1/2010] enacted stronger rules to prevent the media from showing what's happening with the oil spill in the Gulf Coast.  CNN's Anderson Cooper reported that evening, "The Coast Guard today announced new rules keeping photographers and reporters and anyone else from coming within 65 feet of any response vessel or booms out on the water or on beaches — 65 feet."

Gibbs Evades Question of Whether Obama Agrees With His Medicare Director.  White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs has evaded answering the question of whether President Barack Obama agrees with Dr. Donald Berwick, his newly appointed director of Medicare and Medicaid, who has insisted that health-care systems must redistribute wealth.  "Excellent health care is by definition redistributional," Berwick said in a speech delivered on July 1, 2008.  When asked directly at the July 7 White House press briefing whether Obama agreed with this, Gibbs would not answer the question.

White House Successfully Puts Cap on Gusher of Unflattering Oil Spill Stories.  It's as if the entire country decided that the president had bombed in his speech, that the federal response was an immense disappointment, and that the coast was doomed ... and then moved on to more interesting topics.

Why Obama evades reporters.  Let's face it; the more Barack Obama exposes of himself the more America has no confidence in, or respect for, him.  His serial lies have become obvious, as has his lack of knowledge.  America was sold a story — and this story had a very bad ending.

The President's One-Man Death Panel.  The president recess-appoints a fan of rationing and Britain's National Health Service to direct one-third of American health care.  Why does the administration want his views hidden from scrutiny?

Most Transparent Administration Ever Makes Effective Reporting from Gulf a Felony.  Effectively reporting on the Gulf oil spill is now a Class D felony, punishable by a fine of up to $40,000.  That's right, the most transparent administration in history has made it a felony, effective July 1, to get within 65 feet of what the Coast Guard determines are essential recovery efforts.  According to Anderson Cooper, officials tried to up that number to 300 feet.

Berwick Doesn't Stick Around for Questions.  President Barack Obama's controversial pick to run Medicare and Medicaid made his first public appearance Tuesday [7/13/2010] since he landed the job in a recess appointment, but he did not remain at the press conference long enough to take any questions from the news media.

Memo to the Media — Obama's Just Not That Into You.  Love is a many splendored thing — except when the feeling isn't mutual.  Then, love stinks.  That's the position journalists find themselves in as their love for President Barack Obama has been a one-way street.  The rejection is much harsher than screening their calls.  Obama has done everything to keep them away except take out a restraining order.  The latest examples of mistreatment include actions by both the Defense Department and government agencies in the Gulf clean-up.  In both cases, journalists have been restricted in ways that have made scribes scream.

Benevolent Billboards.  What a coincidence.  Just as Obama is about to institute health care reform, up pops a billboard on Route 22 in Hillside, New Jersey advertising a group supporting the Right-to-Die.  What an ironically opportune time for the euthanasia discussion to begin again.

White House looks to leverage Michelle Obama's popularity.  Playing it safe can sometimes pay off, as first lady Michelle Obama is finding with some of the highest favorable ratings in official Washington.  And she could be taking those numbers out for a test drive, as the White House looks for ways to leverage her popularity without diminishing her value as an asset.

Michelle's life is a holiday.  Not cognizant that the masses have already blacked her out of mind, Mrs. Barack Obama has put a media blackout on her latest holiday including an about 30-room reservation for herself, daughter, friends and bodyguards at a five-star hotel in Benahavis, Spain.

Jobless Nation:  Heckuva Job, Barack.  Earlier this season, Team Obama launched a PR offensive designed to convince Americans that a real economic recovery was underway.  They called it "Recovery Summer!" Note the exclamation point.  They wanted you to really, really get that they believed we were in "recovery."  It wasn't just a "recovery."  It was "Recovery Summer!"

Obama's curious silence.  HR2765 would seem on the face of it to have been a signal victory for American authors and for their free speech rights.  It would seem logical that the White House should have trumpeted its promulgation to the high heaven.  Instead, the Adminstration's silence has been deafening.  The Act was subject of no ceremony.  No photograph was released to the public, and only Representative Steve Cohen was present at its signing.

White House reporters mum on Obama lunch.  White House reporters are keeping quiet about an off-the-record lunch today with President Obama — even those at news organizations who've advocated in the past for the White House to release the names of visitors. ... Obama has met several times with columnists and television pundits for off-the-record lunches to discuss a variety of issues since becoming president.  Today, he reached out to the White House beat reporters who file their papers' straight news stories.

Feed the Reporters!  Nuance and President Obama's Media Strategy.  Today President Obama tried to make nice with White House reporters by hosting an off-the-record lunch.  The reporters are mad and sad because the President doesn't speak to them very often, especially not in casual settings.  The New York Times didn't go to lunch — no time to waste with off-the-record chicken salad — but blogged about the invitation.  The dozen or so reporters who did eat with the President this afternoon weren't allowed to write about it.
[Emphasis added.]

Examiner takes principled stand!  Skips OTR lunch with Obama!  It takes more than a cheeseburger to buy our silence, Mr. President!

Stop Obama's tax-paid propaganda.  Recovery.gov, for example, is a tax-paid website that cost $18 million to create, yet does little more than peddle job-creation data that are discredited almost as soon as they are posted.

Paying for hope with your change.  In the modern era, all presidents have to some degree used their office to promote themselves and their policies.  The Obama administration, however, has taken the practice to new heights.  The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) last month unveiled a slick, $700,000 television commercial featuring crusty old actor Andy Griffith announcing that "more good things" are coming to seniors — thanks to Obamacare.  Just add the O Force campaign logo, and the advertisement will be ready for use in the 2012 presidential race.

Andy Griffith Ad Taxpayer Funding Probe.  Ads featuring Andy Griffith running in targeted markets during the election cycle at a reported cost to taxpayers of over $3 million in October alone are coming under scrutiny from Republican leaders on the House Ways and Means Committee.

The Andy Griffith Show.  Just before the November elections, the federal government decided to spend $3.2 million on "educational" TV ads praising ObamaCare.  The spots featured Andy Griffith, a favorite of seniors from his days on TV's "Mayberry R.F.D." and "Matlock."  But the expenditure may have been inappropriate, and a nonpartisan fact-checking group says the ads were misleading.  The ads with Mr. Griffith, a staunch Democrat, might as well have been a paid commercial for President Obama's health-care talking points.

Andy Griffith's Obamacare Ads Cost Taxpayers $3.66 Million.  Politico reports that the Obama administration's pro-Obamacare Andy Griffith TV ad cost taxpayers $3.66 million, according to records obtained from the Department of Health and Human Services.  Actually, there were at least three such ads, so it's not clear whether this was the cost for one, or for the whole batch.  In [one] ad, Griffith says, "That new health care law sure sounds good for all of us on Medicare!"

How Obama mis-spent his summer vacation.  Since 1985, the hands-down winner for worst marketing campaign has been New Coke — the disastrous flop when Coca-Cola tried to change its flavor.  After 25 years, we have a new contender — President Obama's "Summer of Recovery" slogan of 2010.

Obama's kids are so off-limits they're on the cover of his new book.  [Scroll down]  In July 2008, candidate Obama allowed his two daughters, Sasha and Malia, to appear on a segment of "Access Hollywood," but soon came to regret his decision.  "I don't think it's healthy," he told ABC, "and it's something that we'll be avoiding in the future."  Since that time, there has been a general rule that Obama's children are off-limits for most public discussion.  But it's been a rule the president has observed at times and ignored at others.  Now, it appears, is one of those times he's ignoring it.

John Podesta's propaganda strikes again on White House's Chamber of Commerce line.  [Scroll down]  No surprise, the White House and the DNC are taking talking points from the Center for American Progress, also known as the non-profit arm of the Obama administration.  CAP's ties to the Obama administration are very close.  CAP chief John Podesta was the transition director for the Obama administration, and his name shows up in White House visitor logs more than any other.  At least 10 former lobbyists for CAP now work in senior administration positions.  I remember the first time I saw CAP produce similar propaganda (yes, I think that's the right word for dishonest material intended to feed to politicians).

Shutting Up Business.  If at first you don't succeed, get some friends in high places to shut your opponents up.  That's the latest Washington power play, as Democrats and liberals attack the Chamber of Commerce and independent spending groups in an attempt to stop businesses from participating in politics.

Obama Campaigns On Hip Hop Radio This Morning.  With a hip hop beat playing in the background, President Obama called into a Dallas urban radio station this morning, bluntly appealing to Democrats to vote early which is allowed in Texas.  And at the prodding of host Rickey Smiley, an Obama supporter, the President speculated on how he might govern if Republicans score big gains in Congress next week.

When Bias Has Its Own Media.  The Obama Administration feels free to smack the press around, because by giving up their independence, the press also gave up any of the leverage they used to have.  Once the media sold out everything, they have nothing left to offer anymore.  As long as they are wedded to promoting socialism at any cost, the White House is the only game in town, and as long as they create the news out of White House talking points, the Obama Administration has the media right where it wants it.

Unemployment Up, Obama Flees the Country.  Just as we find ourselves a mere whisper away from double digit unemployment, our inept Commander in Chief runs off to Afghanistan where he will lecture General Petraeus on how to run a war without winning.

President Obama's Leather Jacket Has New-Car Smell.  One might be inclined to dismiss the stiff, gleaming newness of the leather jacket President Obama wore to greet the troops in Afghanistan today [12/3/2010] as a sign that his awkward "Tough Guy" stance was a hastily conceived distraction from this morning's lousy jobs report.

The Andy Griffith Show.  Just before the November elections, the federal government decided to spend $3.2 million on "educational" TV ads praising ObamaCare.  The spots featured Andy Griffith, a favorite of seniors from his days on TV's "Mayberry R.F.D." and "Matlock."  But the expenditure may have been inappropriate, and a nonpartisan fact-checking group says the ads were misleading.  The ads with Mr. Griffith, a staunch Democrat, might as well have been a paid commercial for President Obama's health-care talking points.

The Surprise Trip to the Briefing Room.  The unannounced visit by President Obama and former President Bill Clinton to the White House briefing room was a surprise to absolutely everyone — including Mr. Obama's top advisers.

White House attempts to quiet revived talk of 'death panels'.  The Obama administration is trying to quiet talk about so-called "death panels" after The New York Times reported Sunday that a new Medicare regulation includes incentives for end-of-life-care planning.  The Medicare policy will pay doctors for holding end-of-life-care discussions with patients, according to the Times.

Did someone mention death panels?

HHS is Paying Google with Taxpayer Money to Alter 'Obamacare' Search Results.  The brazenness of the Obama administration never ceases to amaze.  Try typing "Obamacare" into Google, and you'll find that the first entry is now the Obama administration's www.healthcare.gov.  If you don't particularly like that result, you'll probably hate the fact that you're paying for it. ... Using taxpayers' money to alter the results of search engines and to control the flow of information is disturbing on multiple levels.  It's particularly disturbing when it's done to promote a massive expansion of government power, like Obamacare.  And one wonders how — or if — it's even legal.

Holder Uses New York Times to Tamper with New Black Panther Investigation.  Attorney General Eric Holder recently made statements to the New York Times so detached from reality that they could have been written by scheming Republican operatives for fun.  In particular, Holder tells the Times that the lawless dismissal of voter intimidation charges against the New Black Panthers is "a made up controversy."

'Investing' our way to the poorhouse.  President Obama hopes to be saved by a euphemism.  He is wagering on the power of the word "investment."  It sounds so market oriented and cutting edge in contrast to its more pedestrian, politically fraught synonym, "spending," especially the toxic "deficit spending" that, to this point, has defined Obama's presidency.

Obama lunches with TV newsmen before State of the Union.  President Obama met with several top news personalities and pundits on Tuesday before his State of the Union Address.  Per a White House pool report, the president met with the group for lunch at the White House this afternoon [1/25/2011].  Among the figures reported to be meeting with the president were CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos from ABC, Brian Williams from NBC and Chris Matthews from MSNBC.  It wasn't clear whether there were more attendees at the meeting.

Obama wants to put himself on TV during an "emergency" -- just like Fidel Castro.
FCC: Presidential emergency alerts to be tested.  Everybody has heard the national Emergency Alert System (EAS).  Those familiar "duck calls" that reassure listeners "THIS is a test..."  The FCC is planning an upgrade to the tests by including presidential announcements in the system. ... "The primary goal is to provide the President with a mechanism to communicate with the American public during times of national emergency," said [Lisa] Fowlkes.  The change, she said, is that prior to last week's order there was no rule in place to call for or allow a test from top to bottom.

Obama's leeriness of the press.  Obama, it seems, does not like the uncontrolled Q&A. ... Obama so far has endured just 75 short question-and-answer sessions with the press, according to Towson University political science professor Martha Kumar, who tabulates all things White House press ops.  During the same period in their own respective presidencies, George W. Bush did 258 short Q&As, Bill Clinton did a mind-numbing 408, and George H.W. Bush did 159.  More than Obama, in short.

Michelle Obama to Hold Another 'Listen Only' Press Briefing.  First Lady Michelle Obama will hold another "listen-only" conference call with reporters this afternoon, continuing a pattern of holding events for the media where access is sharply limited. ... The First Lady appears to be establishing a new routine, where she speaks and — from beginning to end — reporters mutely listen.

He speaks, you listen, then you leave.
Obama shoos away reporters.  What's the point of inviting reporters into the Oval Office if they can't ask questions?  President Obama gave a statement to the press pool on Monday after talking with Australia's prime minister, Julia Gillard. ... Afterward, a handful of the journalists invited into the room shouted questions at Obama, as is customary in such situations.  But Obama wouldn't bite.  "Thank you very much, everybody," Obama said as the reporters clamored for an answer.  "Thank you guys."  They kept shouting.  "Thank you very much.  Thank you very much, everybody," he repeated.

Obama Wags the Dog.  What is this really about?  As the price of oil skyrockets, as our debt levels rise to new highs and our housing market drops to new lows, President Obama decides that it is a fantastic time to start dropping bombs on Libya.  Nobody, including Obama, seems to know what our objective is in Libya.  First, it was deposing terroristic thug Muammar Qaddafi; then it was standing up for the United Nations; then it was protecting civilians; now it is some combination of all of them.

Andrew Breitbart: Courts an Instrument of Leftist Thuggery.  Politicians and their supporters use interesting tactics to intimidate and silence their critics, from rumor-mongering to editorial cartoons, even dueling pistols.  But the target of a high-profile lawsuit who is also a relentless investigator of the Obama administration says the judicial system is being used to retaliate against him.  "The President of the United States has an unprecedented and uncanny desire to silence those who report the truth about him," says media mogul Andrew Breitbart.

Obama's War on "War".  What if they gave a war and nobody was allowed to say it?  The debate over military action in Libya has lately taken an absurd twist, driven by the Obama administration's bizarre unwillingness to call a war a war.

Biden's Journalist-in-the-Closet Caper.  By the time Obama and Biden were sworn in, the once-valiant, once-intelligent, once-fully-human American media had been completely reduced to the Puppy-Pack that now begs for access and cowers in closets.  The Puppy-Pack lines up for "press" reports every day, where they are treated to the master's latest lap-dog's hush-puppy avoidance tactics.  Still, the Puppy-Pack stays in line and doesn't even complain when they never get to actually ask the master any questions.  Press conferences are far too unwieldy for the new master to handle, so the Puppy-Pack just goes with the flow.  And as every sentient American knows by now, the only people who watch or listen to Barack and Joe's Puppy-Pack are the sheeple.

Reporter one of many to be 'caged' by VP.  Vice President Joe Biden's staff may have apologized for stowing a news reporter away in a closet during a fundraiser last weekend, but Saturday's incident wasn't the first time the VP kept a member of the media stuck in a tiny room during an event.  In March 2010, Baltimore Sun reporter Justin Fenton was on duty to cover a Biden fundraiser in Maryland, and was forced to wait for an hour in what he jokingly called a "cage" that was guarded by the vice president's staff.

As Stockholm syndrome sets in, the reporter himself tries to backpedal.
How my wait in a closet almost brought down the White House.  I was kidnapped.  That was news to me.  My paper and I conspired to cover this up, to protect Vice President Joe Biden and his staff from charges they had imprisoned me at a fundraiser last week.  That was news to me too.

Obama selects small-town reporters who are sufficiently bedazzled.
Obama rewarding local stations in battleground states with biggest 'get' in TV news.  As Obama keeps the White House press corps at a distance, he has sat for more than a dozen interviews with their colleagues from local TV stations — with unpredictable and sometimes illuminating results. ... An anchor from the ABC affiliate in Cincinnati swiped paper towels embossed with the presidential seal from a White House bathroom, "just to prove that I really was there."  Of course, she had additional proof of her visit:  an interview with the president that aired on television.  Nonetheless, she held up the towels for the camera in a live shot from the White House lawn.

How President Obama plays media like a fiddle:  In early November, Barack Obama was one sad sack of a president — his agenda repudiated by midterm voters, his political judgment scorned by commentators, his future darkened by a growing belief he might be a one-time president.  In early February, Obama is master of the moment — his polls on the upswing, his political dexterity applauded by pundits, his status as Washington's dominant figure unchallenged even by Republicans.  This three-month metamorphosis says something about Obama's survival skills, but the turnabout says even more about the mainstream media:  Obama is playing the press like a fiddle.

Advantage Obama.  If releasing his birth certificate was made necessary because the media were distracted by the issue, and were thereby neglecting the important stories, then why in the world would he release it on the same day news broke of his decision to appoint Gen. David Petraeus as CIA director and Leon Panetta secretary of defense?  Surely these are the kinds of substantive stories the media should spend their time covering instead of being distracted by the birth certificate.  But with his press conference, the president guaranteed that no one would cover anything that day except the birther issue.

Did White House use birth certificate to distract press?  When he released his long-form birth certificate on Wednesday morning, President Barack Obama gave into pressure put on him by potential 2012 presidential candidate Donald Trump, seemingly playing right into the real estate mogul's hand by addressing an issue he had so steadfastly avoided.  But, indirectly, Obama is benefiting from giving in to Trump as the mainstream media's focus isn't on the major storylines that would usually dominate the headlines, like the Federal Reserve press conference, unfavorable economic numbers and all-time-lows for Obama in polling results.

Just in Time, Obama Changes the Subject.  [Scroll down]  The New Yorker piece — and its devastating "leading from behind" quote — had entered the mainstream media.  The whole thing was, shall we say, about to metastatize.  Time to change the subject.  And a topic was readily at hand.  That very morning, the White House released the President's long-sought Hawaiian birth certificate.

Obama's Other Hand.  While we were distracted by the president's birth certificate show-and-tell, his EPA releases its guidelines for expanding federal power under the Clean Water Act.  America's economy and freedom are at stake.

Obama pics taken after speech.
Pic of Obama's speech was staged.  The photos are now widespread online and in newspapers, images of a confident President Barack Obama striding toward the camera to announce the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.  Not so widespread, however, is the news that the photos weren't from Obama's actual history-making speech.  According to a Reuters blog post, the photos were taken after Obama's actual announcement, during a brief re-enactment minutes later.

Turns out now, those photos of Obama giving his 'I caught Bin Laden' speech were faked.  Could the Obama White House communications folks have found anything else to step in over the presentation this week of their boss and the dramatic recounting and re-recounting of the execution and really rapid remains disposal of Osama bin Laden?  It turns out now that all of the non-White House still photographs of the president's dramatic entrance down the hall into the East Room and the late Sunday evening speech itself were faked.

Blotting out oil reality.  With polls making it crystal clear that Americans are not pleased with spiking gasoline prices, President Obama has deployed what might be called the "octopus strategy."  When an octopus is threatened, one of its survival tools is to dispense a cloud of ink to confound predators.  Likewise, in response to rising fuel prices, Mr. Obama has dispensed a cloud of obfuscation — one that scapegoats others for high energy prices when his own policies are at fault.

Campaign cheers we're not supposed to hear.  There is a particular media conceit that, in the garb of purported impeccable disclosure, is in fact a license for news sources to market talking points. ... Admittedly, the senior official was merely following an old, regularly used Washington tactic:  going on background not necessarily to speak the truth, but to spin the office talking point — and make it sound like an inside revelation rather than just a standard piece of propaganda for mass consumption.

Immigration Reform? It's a Distraction.  Immigration reform, huh? ... Weren't we just talking about the $14 trillion debt?  The budget you didn't pass?  Thuggery against Boeing?  Debt ceilings?  Medicare?  According to a new NBC News poll, 58 percent of Americans disapprove of Obama's handling of the economy — an all-time high.  So perhaps the discussion wasn't helpful to the most vital imperative:  electing Obama.

Did Obama Delay the Osama Raid for Political Reasons?  Amid all the uproar over the Obama administration's missteps following the successful raid on Osama bin Laden's Abbotabad hideout, one question has been overlooked:  did the administration deliberately delay the raid to yield the greatest benefit for Obama?  The operation was five years in progress at the time of the raid.

Puddle Power Grab.  Barack Obama's EPA means to implement the major provisions of failed legislation by regulatory means, a massive power grab with frightening implications.  But with the American media preoccupied with a royal wedding and the assassination of Osama bin Laden, almost nobody seems to have noticed when late last month an important announcement was made by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Soviet Propaganda Would Fit In With USA Of Today.  Today, the Obama administration is inserting federal government dictates into major aspects of life and the economy in the USA.  In the USSR, the governing Communist Party directed and controlled all aspects of life and the economy.  Today in the USA, political correctness is used by American progressives to control speech and to suppress undesirable criticism.  In the USSR, speech-control played a major role in silencing the opposition.  The nuanced difference is that those who critique Obama administration policies are accused of being racists or bigots; in the USSR, individuals who criticized the government were described as spies, traitors or "enemies of the people."

Everybody Out Of The Pool.  If the mainstream media had any gumption at all, they would vigorously protest the strange, new self-appointed arbiter of "fair" press coverage as an implicit threat to their own capacity to cover the news fairly.  What the White House has done by telling the Boston Herald it can no longer send a pool reporter to cover local campaign events on behalf of the media is another baby step toward state control of the media, using the carrot of access against the stick of exile.

Obama off the deep end.  We all know Obama has an aversion to tough questions.  During the campaign, he would refuse to engage with most local media, and reporters who camped out at the rope line got a stern talking-to from a campaign staffer.  But using the White House press pool to possibly punish or reward media based on what the White House considers "fair" coverage?  This is taking the control freak thing to new levels.

Obama's disappearing act with the press.  Don't look now but the last time President Obama allowed questions from the press was on April 5 during the budget battle.  So far, the press doesn't seem to mind very much.  They meekly accept the PR handouts offered by the White House press office and bombard press secretary Jay Carney with questions he couldn't possibly answer anyway.

Truth beware: The Internet "Obamanator" is here.  Internet web sites, pundits, bloggers, commentators and denizens of the "alternative media" who are critical of Barack Hussein Obama beware, as you will now be "officially" in the crosshairs of the Obama White House.  As part of his 2012 re-election campaign, the Obama administration this week created an "online rapid response team" tasked specifically with quashing any Internet articles and news critical of Obama.

Obama White House Bans Newspaper For Printing a Mitt Romney Op Ed.  Apparently the Obama White House is not so fond of the Boston Herald.  Well, maybe "not so fond" is too mild.  More like furious.  So mad, in fact, that the paper was banned by the White House from covering local visits by Obama and crew.

White House Creates Liberal Damage Control Position.  The White House has created a new position dedicated to damage control in the media, but it appears the role will focus on spinning negative stories published on left-of-center websites — or "progressive" blogs as the new job defines them — not right-wing news outlets.

Dangerous precedent for press.  A little more than a week ago, Vice President Joe Biden traveled to fundraisers in two battleground-state cities, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.  Neither stop included the White House press corps; requests by local media to cover the events were denied by the vice president's press office.

The Jewish video Obama doesn't want on the web.  Mysteriously, the Office of the President has requested that a video of a Jewish singing group performing at the White House be removed from the web.

Obama's Mounting Media Manipulation.  Continuing a pattern of punishing unsupportive media that began during the 2008 campaign, the Obama Administration recently banned a Boston Herald reporter from the media pool covering a presidential visit as apparent retaliation for running an op-ed by Mitt Romney. ... This follows a string of similar incidents in recent days...

Will Public Be Intentionally Distracted From Project Gunrunner Hearings?  The premise here is rather simple.  This president loves distractions; his administration is so corrupt, he desperately needs them in order to avoid accountability.  The more something can damage his administration, the more those distractions are welcomed and the larger they must be.  In November of 2009, the climategate scandal broke when scores of emails were released that torpedoed the man-made global warming movement.  A few short days later, a scandal nowhere near as important dominated the news cycle; it involved the White House "gate crashers" known as the Salahis.

White House Corrects Job Creation "Laughter" Line in Transcript.  Most of the time the lines "Laughter" and "Applause" in a press release of a transcript don't normally garner any attention -- except when President Obama is talking about jobs and the two words were interchanged.  At a fundraising event Monday night [6/20/2011], Obama said, according to the White House's official release sent a couple hours later, this line that was noted to be apparently funny to the crowd:  "Over the last 15 months we've created over 2.1 million private sector jobs.  (Laughter)," the release stated.

W.H. flags Drudge-mocked transcript.  The Drudge Report Tuesday morning cheekily linked to an official White House transcript of President Obama's remarks from a fundraiser the night before, which noted the audience laughing at his jobs claims.  "Over the last 15 months we've created over 2.1 million private sector jobs.  (Laughter.)"  said Obama per the transcript, emailed to reporters Monday night at around 11:30 p.m.  It did seem a little strange — because why would Obama supporters laugh at job creation?

The Editor says...
Doctoring the transcript to make the President look better is exactly the same thing as revising history.  The official record has now been changed, but don't ever forget that Obama's dishonest minions tampered with it.  Obama stood there and claimed he had created millions of jobs, and even his most partisan supporters knew immediately that it was either a joke or a lie, and they laughed at him.  That's why they had to change the transcript.

White House Uses Progressive Media Director to Bully Conservatives on Twitter.  Friday afternoon, the White House quietly released its annual report to Congress on White House staff salaries.  Among the employees is the infamous director of progressive media and online response, Jesse Lee, who is paid $72,500 a year to provide White House sanctioned responses to any negative press it receives.  The position, which was previously part of the privately-funded DNC's rapid response team, is now a taxpayer-funded spin machine to thwart bad press against President Barack Obama.

New border gun rules a distraction from Fast and Furious scandal, Issa says.  The Obama administration bolstered sales-reporting requirements Monday for gun dealers in the southern border states of Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas.  Darrell Issa, House oversight committee chairman, has already criticized the new requirements as nothing more than an attempt to deflect attention from the Operation Fast and Furious scandal.

Did someone mention Fast and Furious?

White House Did Not Want GOP Response to Presidential Speech.  The President is used to flexing his muscles and storming the public airwaves whenever he wants to sell skeptical Americans on socialist economic policies.  The White House and media have before refused the GOP an opportunity to present a dissenting response, thus squelching the presentation of a balanced debate.

Obama's Idiotic Infographic.  President Obama has suggested in his last 147 television appearances that he inherited the national debt from President Bush, who squandered the Clinton surplus with his "tax cuts for the rich" and his unnecessary wars.  Now someone at whitehouse.gov, apparently not an accountant or an economist, has put together an "infographic" that assigns hard numbers to these vague assertions, explaining in detail how "$12.7 Trillion [was] Added to the Debt Over the Last Decade."  The graphic parts of the infographic are competent, and the White House logo looks spiffy, but the info part is entirely mendacious.

President Obama Celebrates Birthday in Private Star-Studded Rose Garden Party.  White House officials offered no details about the Rose Garden barbecue and birthday party thrown for President Obama last night.  No menu, no guest list, the event did not appear on his official schedule.

Congress to Investigate White House Involvement with Bin Laden Film.  The normally tight-lipped Obama administration is reportedly giving a Hollywood production company access to sensitive intelligence information, in an effort to help produce a film about the Osama bin Laden raid.  Why would the White House do something like this, you might wonder?  It could have something to do with the movie's well-timed release date — a month before the 2012 election.

Lawmaker: Probe White House involvement in Osama bin Laden film.  Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) has called for a federal investigation into allegations that White House officials are providing Hollywood filmmakers with "top-level access" to information surrounding the successful mission that killed 9/11 terrorist Osama bin Laden.

Sony Hosted Obama Fundraiser, Releasing Bin Laden Movie Before Election.  There may be an overtly political reason that moviegoers will be seeing the story of the Osama bin Laden raid just before they vote for president.  Sony Pictures, the company distributing next year's film, hosted a fundraiser for Barack Obama on their studio's premises in California last April.  So far, Sony is the only major studio to hold a political fundraiser this cycle.  According to Deadline Hollywood, Sony will release the bin Laden movie, directed by Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow, on October 12, 2012 — less than a month before the presidential election.

King requests investigation of 'administration-sanctioned' film on classified bin Laden raid.  The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee has called for an investigation into reports that the Obama administration is granting Sony Pictures and director Kathryn Bigelow "high-level access" for a film about the Navy SEAL operation which killed Osama Bin Laden.  The movie is scheduled for release one month before the 2012 presidential election.

Obama's cheap 'shot'.  Nineteen of the 30 families asked for no media coverage of the ceremony at Dover — that request for privacy was, of course, honored.  By everyone, that is, except Barack Obama.  He slipped in a personal photographer, who snapped a dramatic photo of the president saluting in silhouette.

Photo of Obama saluting fallen troops questioned.  The image millions of Americans saw after the bodies of 30 fallen troops arrived at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware Tuesday was of a silhouetted President Obama in somber salute.  Now news organizations are wondering why the White House was allowed to take and distribute that photo when media covering the event were barred from taking any.

Afghan Helicopter Attack is Obama's Fault.  In a characteristic move, Obama has banned the media from the return of the remains of these Navy SEALs to the U.S.  Clearly, the visual of a parade of coffins, the images of the worst day in recent U.S. history, would not be an opportune Obama photo-op.  Cold-blooded calculation.  And do not expect the press, whose job it is, to get to the truth of this matter.

Big bucks come from Comcast.  President Obama raised eyebrows this weekend when he visited Comcast CEO Brian Roberts' Martha's Vineyard home on Sunday [8/21/2011].  Comcast, beyond being a telecommunications giant, is also the parent company of NBC and MSNBC.

Obama's Command Center Photo-Op.  President Downgrade cut his vacation short to make an appearance at the Hurricane Command Center for a few pictures yesterday [8/27/2011]. ... Apparently, not everyone was impressed with this obvious publicity stunt.

The Department Of Doublespeak.  The government's image well earned by its excesses are what the administration wants the public to forget when it uses the phrase "federal family."  In reality, our "federal family" is actually Big Brother — a ruling presence that burdens, manipulates, plunders, abuses and surveils the people.  Big Brother demands obedience and doesn't tolerate dissent. ... Covering up a government's reputation by referring to it as a family doesn't change the facts that produced the sullied reputation.  It is still an unwelcome force by any other name.

FEMA's use of term 'federal family' for government expands under Obama.  The Obama administration didn't invent the phrase but has taken it to new heights.  "Under the direction of President Obama and Secretary Janet Napolitano, the entire federal family is leaning forward to support our state, tribal and territorial partners along the East Coast," a FEMA news release declared Friday as Irene churned toward landfall.  The G-word — "government" — has been nearly banished, with FEMA instead referring to federal, state and local "partners" as well as "offices" and "personnel."

AttackWatch.com is the Administration's Latest Propaganda Arm.  President Obama's official re-election campaign has set up a website ostensibly to defend him against false attacks, but its obvious purpose is to smear Republicans and propagandize.  What could be more shameless?

Update:
Is @AttackWatch all watched up?  The Twitter feed has been silent now for nearly three weeks, and the website hasn't been updated for the same amount of time.

Obama attempts to redefine September 11:
Obama declares September 11 National Grandparents Day.  Despite the seemingly singular focus on tragedy this September 11, the White House found another purpose for the day: recognizing the importance of grandparents.  Quietly on Friday [9/9/2011], President Barack Obama declared September 11, 2011 National Grandparents Day.

The Editor says...
Even though this "holiday" has been celebrated since 1978, this is still an attempt to draw attention away from the anniversary of the day America was attacked by the Religion of Peace.  Barack H. Obama has tried this before!

Is The Administration Going to Use GM to Distract from Solyndra?  Many people call it Government Motors these days.  General Motors has been a government slush fund to reward unions and other Democratic loyalists since the Obama Administration arrived in Washington.  Now there are signs the Obama campaign and DNC intend to use GM to distract from Solyndra.

Did someone mention the Solyndra scandal?

"The most open Administration in history" barring reporters from Obama's fundraisers.  The President will star at two big Silicon Valley fundraisers Sunday, attending a $38,500 per person dinner at the Atherton home of COO Sheryl Sandberg, and starring at $2,500 and up fundraiser starring Bruce Hornsby at the Woodside home of Sandi and John Thompson.  But in a rare move — and a departure from the President's previous trips to California — local media have been informed that the White House will not allow any of their representatives to act as a "pool" reporter and file reports from those events.

Nice car company you got, Ford.  In a single day this week, the Obama administration managed to chill the free market, stomp all over the First Amendment and — once again — bend Detroit's auto industry to its political will.  Not bad for a day's work.

How much did THIS cost?
Michelle Obama's Target trip.  Never has a Target dash caused such a ruckus.  Jennifer Lopez could probably shop at Target without creating a stir equal to that caused by the first lady after she made an unannounced, midafternoon trip Thursday [9/29/2011] to the mega-retailer in Alexandria, Va.

Recession chic... or a desperate PR stunt?  It was intended to her portray her as an ordinary mom, keen to make savings for her family.  But Michelle Obama's casual slip-out trip to Target is being met with scepticism, as media personalities deride the 'incognito' visit as a well-timed PR stunt.  Only last month the First Lady was accused of indulging in luxury holidays worth $10 million dollars on the tax payers' dime.

Another staged moment in the lives of Barack and Michelle Obama.  Michelle Obama just had to get out to Target to do a little shopping last week.  But, before the shopping run the White House tipped off AP photographer Charles Dharapak so that he would be at the store to memorialize the moment.

WaPo Now Wonders If Michelle's Target Photos Were Just Orchestrated PR with AP.  Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi is finding a lot of unusual circumstances — and unusual no-comments — around Michelle Obama's razzle-dazzle distraction outing to Target after her latest controversy over wearing $42,000 diamond bracelets.  He found "there might have been something to the notion of White House orchestration."

A convenient arrest?  This isn't exactly getting into tin foil hat territory, but neither can the question about the timing of revealing the arrest of a suspect in the Iranian terror plot be dismissed.

Holder's distraction?  Talk about convenient timing.  Yesterday's [10/11/2011] announcement of a thwarted Iranian bombing/assassination plot against Saudi targets in Washington sure takes a lot of heat off of Attorney General Eric Holder.  Coming, as it did, just as the House Oversight Committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), seemed to have caught him in a bald-faced lie about his role in Operation Fast and Furious.

Obama freezes local reporters out of S.F. event.  President Obama is scheduled to appear before hundreds of donors at a $7,500-a-plate noontime fundraiser today at San Francisco's W Hotel — but not a single local reporter will be allowed inside to cover his only stop in the area, the White House said Monday [10/24/2011].

White House Wants Jason Mattera Investigated for Biden Question.  "Don't screw around with me!" barked flustered Vice President Joe Biden during his now-famous encounter with HUMAN EVENTS editor Jason Mattera.  It looks like the White House wants to put some muscle behind that threat.  The Dear Leaders do not like impertinent questions.

Filth of OWS goes beyond sanitation.  We live in an era where OWS literally stole the news.  Citizens, who have to scramble to find out about ObamaCare reaching the Supreme Court, are saturated with news about OWS rapes, drug overdose deaths and the outbreak of both sexually transmitted disease and ones like tuberculosis.  OWS grab news headlines for fighting the capitalist pigs in the banking business while giving the capitalist pigs in senate and congress a free ride.  The only cleanliness associated with OWS is the purity of their Marxist strategy at play.  They deflect and distract from the Fundamental Transformation of America ongoing at the White House.

New emails: DOJ, Eric Holder manipulated press for favorable 'Fast and Furious' coverage.  Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department sought to manipulate reporters' coverage of Operation Fast and Furious during the days preceding a November 1 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, new emails obtained by The Daily Caller indicate.  Emails between senior Justice Department officials and investigators in the office of Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley show that congressional staffers leading the investigation into Operation Fast and Furious requested information about Operation Wide Receiver — a Bush administration program — and other similar cases, more than a full month before the DOJ leaked information to selected media outlets on October 31.

The Wall Street Occupiers as Mind Erasers.  Look at what those Occupy morons on Wall Street have achieved in just a month of ruckus-making.  Those kids can't string a coherent sentence together.  They were stoned a lot of the time.  What they did was pure street theater, a publicity con, and the media loved it.  It was easy for all the mediots in Manhattan to hop a cab from Midtown to check on the slow-motion riot, write their stories, and go home early.  The "hate Capitalism" schtick got headlines — while the Occubums were tweeting up a storm on their shiny new iPods, iPads, and iPhones, all exquisite products of capitalist creativity.

POTUS has Coffee with Progressive Media Stars.  An all-star list of progressive and liberal media folks came to the White House today to chat with President Obama over coffee in the Roosevelt Room.

Obama goes Christmas shopping at Best Buy.  President Obama made a surprise visit to Best Buy and PetSmart Wednesday [12/21/2011], picking up a rubber chew toy for his dog and Christmas gifts for his daughters.  The shopping trip in northern Virginia opened with the PetSmart stop, where Mr. Obama picked out a rubber chew toy that cost $24.99 and another item.

Was Bo flown back from Hawaii to Washington for Obama photo op?  Did Barack Obama's dog Bo fly back just days after his Hawaiian holiday began so he could take part in a presidential photo call? ... an island eyewitness said he saw the Portuguese Water Dog taken for a walk earlier this week, ahead of President Obama's delayed arrival.

Bo and B.O.:  This may not be the biggest story of the year, and in all likelihood it probably isn't even true.  But did the president really order the first dog back from Hawaii to the White House to be a prop for a Petsmart photo op?  According to a report, Bo was spotted one day in Hawaii, where Mrs. Obama had gone for vacation in advance of her husband, and in a "regular guy at the pet store" photo-op with President Obama in Virginia the next day.

The Editor says...
The eyewitness in Hawaii said he saw a "Portuguese Water Dog taken for a walk", but it does not appear that the dog was being walked by anyone in the Obama family, so this was apparently a mistaken sighting.  Why does a story like this gain any traction?  Because it sounds like something the Obama White House would do.

White House: No Round Trip Excursion for Bo.  Apparently, a report in the Chicago Sun-Times saying Bo had gone to Hawaii with Michelle and the girls last weekend was not correct, and a Bo sighting reported by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser was mistaken. ... Now — this is pretty funny — the man who reported the Bo siting [sic] has released a statement saying he made a mistake.

White House says Bo didn't come with first family to Hawaii.  There's a flurry of reports in the blogosphere today on whether first dog Bo was flown back from Hawaii to the nation's capital for a photo op after President Barack Obama and Bo appeared Wednesday at a store in Alexandria, Va.

Obama's Media Flying Monkeys Get Their Marching Orders.  The relationship between Barack Obama and his media continues to burn with the same ardor as it has from the opening days of the 2008 campaign.  The latest example is private sessions the White House has held with certain favorites not for the purpose of imparting news but for advising how to spin it.

Jay Carney's "Nastygrams" Strain White House Press Relations.  Some members of the White House Press Corps, who have largely given President Obama favorable coverage during his nearly three years in office, are bristling at the communications that press secretary Jay Carney and his staff are sending them.  According to The Washington Post some of the emails from the press office are dubbed "nastygrams" and show just how little tolerance the White House has for criticism from a press that they feel should roll over and play dead for the administration's policies.

Obama's spin doctor bruises hacks with 'nastygrams'.  At the centre of their complaints, according to The Washington Post, are so-called "nastygrams", aggressive, critical emails sent with growing frequency by Mr Carney and his staff.  Some of the more delicate members of the press have also been upset by profane language with which they are increasingly upbraided over the telephone by government spin doctors.  Their concerns were formally raised at a meeting in November between the White House Correspondents Association [WHCA] and Mr Carney's office.

Middle Class Warriors Dine Out for $260.  I realize the Obamas are wealthy people, and that wealthy people have the right to drop $260 of their disposable income on chow.  But if you're going to invite Associated Press photographers along to capture your trip to Target and stage photo ops at PetSmart and Best Buy, then I'm going to write about your unpublicized excursion to Alan Wong's.  The press pool was not invited in to take photos this time.  In fact, others were discouraged from doing so too.

ObamaWood.  Apparently, it's not just us extreme right-wing Republicans who are concerned over the possibility that the White House might have given the studio and filmmakers classified information they weren't cleared to receive. ... As a result, the Pentagon has started its own investigation, and the CIA is now re-examining its policies when it comes to dealing with Hollywood.

Osama bin Laden movie leaks investigated by Defense Department.  Rep. Peter King said Thursday [1/5/2011] that the Defense Department has launched an investigation into whether its personnel leaked information to producers for a film — to be directed by Academy Award winner Kathryn Bigelow — on the May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden.  King, who chairs the Homeland Security Committee, previously called for a probe to look into any sort of cooperation between federal agencies and producers for the movie, which at the time had been scheduled for an October release — a month before the elections.

White House 'covered up' Tim Burton-staged Alice in Wonderland Halloween party.  The White House press corps was allowed to report on more modest festivities earlier that day for Washington-area school children, but did not release details of the more glamorous festivities that occurred later for what was the Obamas' first Halloween in office in 2009.

How Media's Malpractice With Obamas' Halloween Bash Hurts Conservatives.  The White House has thrown so many over-the top parties and the First Lady has come under fire from the President's advisers for her expensive tastes, so the initial reaction to hearing of yet another extravagant White House party is anger.  But was the Halloween bash like the other White House parties?  Was it like the party with Paul McCartney that the Obamas enjoyed while the Gulf struggled with an oil spill?  Or the party the White House threw when America had its credit rating downgraded?

DHS Monitoring Journalist Activity Online.  Just sit back for a minute and imagine the howls from the media if it was disclosed that George W. Bush's Department of Homeland Security was monitoring the social media activity of journalists.  The word Nixonian would be trending on Twitter and you could be assured the daily White House press briefing would turn into a free-for-all.  Well, it'll be interesting to see the reaction of Obama's adoring White House press corps when they discover their activities are being tracked by the Department of Homeland Security. ... In the case of the Obama administration, it's pretty much akin to the boss monitoring the e-mail activity of his employees.

Obama's visit to campaign HQ kept out of sight.  Even as the GOP presidential primary season gets well under way, the White House continues to insist President Obama has yet to focus on his own reelection bid.  It may come as no surprise then that when Obama made an unannounced visit to his campaign headquarters in Chicago Wednesday night [1/11/2012], members of the traveling press corps were kept far away.

Obama and Panetta Uses Military Brass as Props.  "As President Obama stood on the podium in the Pentagon briefing room Thursday [1/12/2012] to outline the nation's defense priorities, the military stood with him," reported The Washington Post, as if the military brass had any other alternative than to serve as props for the President.  Pentagon chief Leon Panetta, who opposed the Reagan defense buildup when he was a left-wing congressman from California, was there as well.

Homeland Security Is Monitoring The Drudge Report, The New York Times.  It's unclear exactly why, but the Department of Homeland has been operating a "Social Networking/Media Capability" program to monitor the top blogs, forums and social networks online for at least the past 18 months.  Based on a privacy compliance review from last November recently obtained by Reuters, the purpose of the project is to "collect information used in providing situational awareness and establishing a common operating picture."  Whatever that means.

White House leaves press pool behind again.  President Obama again left the White House without some of the reporters assigned to travel everywhere with him.  The White House abruptly changed the call time for media to assemble to 8:15 AM this morning, and informed them of this change at 8:16 AM.  As a result, Obama left the White House without a handful of the journalists assigned to write dispatches and reports to other reporters.

Biden's oops moment in SF: "Giants on their way to Super Bowl".  The comment by Biden drew immediate "good-natured" boos from the crowd, according to the report by Josh Richman of the Oakland Tribune, who was the only local print reporter allowed to cover the event.
[Emphasis added.]

Dem Convention Press Briefing Attended by 500 Journos Kept Strictly Off-the-Record.  So the Democratic National Committee (DNC) gave a walk-through Wednesday for network journalists planning on covering the party's nominating convention this summer in Charlotte.  But while the DNC is trumpeting the convention as "the most open and accessible in history," the Charlotte Observer's Mark Washburn complained that the briefing, attended by some 500 journalists, was kept strictly off-the-record.

Obama's Orchestration of the Republican Nomination:  While pretending that Mitt Romney is the Republican they fear most, the Obama Reelection Campaign, with the help of the mainstream media, has been doing what they can to help the Governor secure the nomination.

Inside President Obama's War On The Fast & Furious Whistleblowers.  [Scroll down]  Senator Grassley then pointed out that the first whistleblower to come forward about Fast and Furious (ATF Agent John Dodson) had recently been attacked by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).  According to Senator Grassley, "Someone in the Justice Department leaked a document to the press along with talking points in an attempt to smear [Dodson.]"

Obama Can't Handle the Truth (Just Ask Gov. Brewer).  [Scroll down]  [Brad] Watson looked right at Obama and asked:  "Why do you think you're so unpopular in Texas?"  And when Obama tried to make it look like he wasn't that unpopular in Texas, saying he'd only lost in 2008 by a "few percentage points," Watson countered:  "Well, you lost by about 10%.  55 to 44."  And because Obama can't handle criticism, he became noticeably bothered as the questions continued.  When the short interview was over, an angry Obama whispered to Watson:  "Let me finish my answers next time we do an interview."  Of course Watson won't get another interview, because Obama locks reporters out if they dare take him to task.

Obama finds virtual end-around to bypass the White House press.  President Obama is finding ways to get his message to the public without going through the White House press corps.  Obama on Monday [1/30/2012] held his "first completely virtual interview" as part of an event hosted by Google+, the social network the president called "a newfangled thing."

Convenient: DOJ May Release bin Laden Death Photos in Time for Election.  Looks like the American people may soon see images of President Obama's new favorite talking point:  Osama bin Laden's corpse. ... The cynic in me has to hand it to this administration — rather than publish the images just after bin Laden's death occurred, they've managed to withhold the information long enough to time the release with the 2012 election.

Obama's Been Skipping the White House Press Corps for Network and Social Media Softballs.  In noting the latest White House "hangout" with questions from YouTube users, Amie Parnes of The Hill noted that President Obama has failed to hold a press conference since early October — three months without engaging with White House reporters who might feel professional pressure to ask unexpected hardball questions.  Instead, Obama submits himself to softball sessions with ABC's Diane Sawyer or Barbara Walters.

10,000 Students To Be Bused In For First Lady Exercise Event.  Thousands of students, several well-known athletes and a number of politicians are expected to join Michelle Obama for an event in Des Moines that will promote exercise and healthy eating.

Inside Media Matters:
Sources, memos reveal erratic behavior, close coordination with White House and news organizations.  Founded by [David] Brock in 2004 as a liberal counterweight to "conservative misinformation" in the press, Media Matters has in less than a decade become a powerful player in Democratic politics.  The group operates in regular coordination with the highest levels of the Obama White House, as well as with members of Congress and progressive groups around the country.  Brock, who collected over $250,000 in salary from Media Matters in 2010, has himself become a major fundraiser on the left.  According to an internal memo obtained by TheDC, Media Matters intends to spend nearly $20 million in 2012 to influence news coverage.

Paranoid Media Watchdog Threatens Press Freedoms.  Media Matters For America head David Brock surrounded himself with "more security than a Third World dictator," including a semi-automatic-toting "assistant" protecting him from right-wing assassination squads, according to the Daily Caller. ... Recent revelations expose Media Matters as nothing more than a thinly disguised adjunct of the Democratic National Committee.  With President Obama announcing he was breaking his campaign promise of refusing the help of Super PACs, you'll never guess who serves as the head of a new one called American Bridge 21st Century:  Media Matters' David Brock.  And there's lots of overlap in the two groups' donor lists.

Is the White House manipulating the media through Media Matters?  The Daily Caller has a multipart exposé on David Brock and Media Matters which will surprise ... well, probably no one who reads this site.  Speaking with former and current employees, Tucker Carlson, Vince Coglianese, Alex Pappas, and Will Rahn paint a picture of Brock as paranoid and out of control, but still supremely effective at getting his message out through the mainstream media.

Is Obama Programing Media Matters Or Is It The Other Way Around?  There has been a lot of chatter about the blockbuster report at the Daily Caller revealing the extent to which the self-proclaimed "media watchdog" outfit Media Matters for America is joined at the hip with the White House.  Many are shocked at just how much Obama is seemingly programming the media with the supposedly independent Media Matters acting as its pipeline to the Old Media.

MMFA and the White House sittin' in a tree...  Weird coincidence, huh?  Some guy at a tax-exempt, "nonpartisan" organization puts out an internal memo, and suddenly, out of the blue, the White House is pushing the exact same narrative.  As Ed [Morrissey at Hot Air] points out, the question isn't so much whether Media Matters is colluding with the White House, but which one is pulling the other's strings.  Either way, it doesn't reflect well on the Obama administration.

It's almost time to wag the dog.
Would Obama Go to War with Iran to Win Reelection?  [Scroll down]  Beneath the gentle sound of Obama's pacifistic speeches and his 1960s-style antiwar approach to diplomacy, there lurks a man who wants a second term in office.  And to get such a term, he comes across as someone who'd just about anything to get a few red state voters to go his way in November.

Can Michelle Obama's Media Blitz Erase Her 'Angry Black Woman' Image?  While she is hoping that a series of television appearances will cement the unmarried mom and single women's vote for her husband, she is also obviously trying to re-sculpt her image into that of a pro-America, pro-military and patriotic mom who is fun-loving and pleasant to be around.  This last week, she has consistently been smiling and showing a positively treacly can-do spirit, appearing everywhere on daytime television and late night television talk shows.

Religious Broadcasters Call for IRS to Investigate Media Matters.  The Daily Caller reported last week that Media Matters, the progressive-fascist group funded by wealthy leftists to silence anyone who dare fail to meet their political purity test, received a $50,000 grant to "fact-check" religious broadcasters.  Coincidentally, last November, religious broadcasters found themselves under attack from the FCC, when their exemption to closed captioning regulations, which is very expensive, was revoked.

Is Media Matters Obama's Watergate?  [Scroll down to page 5] As The Daily Caller has exposed here and here, there have been direct ties between Media Matters and various mainstream media outlets.  The Caller lists, among others, MSNBC, the Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle and Huffington Post.  All of which turns these news outlets from journalists to potential partners in collusion, deliberately seeing to it that the Daily Caller series never sees the light of their TV cameras or printed copy.

Thanks to President Obama, NFL season to start a day earlier.  The NFL's 2012 season-opening kickoff game will be played Wednesday, Sept. 5, to avoid conflicting with President Obama's Thursday night speech at the Democratic National Convention.

Obama's Double Standard on Reporting Government Abuses.  What gets under Obama's skin iis [sic] the leaking of embarrassing information about the U.S. government.  He loves when journalists report on foreign governments' misdeeds — particularly when those reports can be used to drum up war fever — but not when they tattle on Washington's abuses.

Obama Press Conference to Cut Into GOP Headlines.  Three senior administration officials just laughed when asked if they had decided to schedule a President Obama press conference for Tuesday to insert the White House into a busy news day that otherwise was guaranteed to be dominated by Republicans fighting for delegates in ten states.  Noting — accurately — that reporters had been lobbying for an Obama press conference, they insisted that the scheduling just worked well for Tuesday.

5 questions for Obama.  President Barack Obama's first full news conference in four months has nothing, nothing whatsoever, to do with upstaging the GOP on Super Tuesday, to hear White House officials tell it.  Of course, nobody outside the four walls of the West Wing really buys that...

White House Works to Shape Debate Over Health Law.  On Wednesday [3/7/2012], White House officials summoned dozens of leaders of nonprofit organizations that strongly back the health law to help them coordinate plans for a prayer vigil, press conferences and other events outside the court when justices hear arguments for three days beginning March 26.

White House works to influence the Supreme Court on ObamaCare.  Just for fun, close your eyes and imagine a Republican president was summoning dozens of non-profit organizations to coordinate activities, including a prayer vigil, for his signature legislation, and imagine the media reaction.  While you're at it, imagine that same Republican president was making blatant attempts to influence the Supreme Court in defense of his legislation.

Let us pray.  Robert Pear reports in yesterday's New York Times on the Obama administration's planned public relations offensive on behalf of Obamacare. ... Hmmm.  A prayer vigil for Obamacare.  This seems to me something of a category error with seeds of comedy buried in it.  Something tells me these folks lack a finely honed sense of irony, or maybe even a deft political touch.

The Shameless Obama Campaign.  The timing of Obama's speech to the UAW could not have been accidental.  As the president was delivering his broadside against his political adversaries and rallying labor's shock troops, Republicans held primaries in Michigan and Arizona.  Again and again, the president has demonstrated an eagerness to interfere with the GOP's moments in the spotlight.

Poll: Government officers impeding reporter access to information, interviews.  An overwhelming majority of journalists who cover Washington say the public is not getting needed information because of government control over interviews and information requests, according to a new poll.  The survey from the Society of Professional Journalists of reporters who cover federal agencies found most journalists have experienced a range of interference from public affairs employees.  The release comes at the start of so-called Sunshine Week, a week dedicated to government transparency.

Obama, Romney Say Admit Women to Augusta Golf Club.  A White House spokesman said Thursday that President Barack Obama believes women should be admitted as members to the all-male Augusta National, home of the Masters golf tournament.

The Editor says...
(1)  It's an election year and the politicians are pandering to the feminists.
(2)  Membership in private clubs is not the government's business, and certainly not the President's business.
(3)  This was probably a red herring to get Obamacare and the Supreme Court out of the headlines.

Obama's Overseas Travel Turning Into Campaign Stops.  [Scroll down]  Lastly there were photos of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dancing at a Cartagena club and knocking back a beer.  Undignified in a diplomatic context, they are perfect images in a populist campaign context.  So if there was nothing serious reported at the summit, maybe it's because there was nothing serious to report.  The media's boys on the bus know very well where momentum comes from — campaign pandering and hijinks, not serious statesmanship.

Race question not even allowed at White House briefing.  At the daily briefing today [4/23/2012], nearly two dozen reporters were not allowed to ask any questions, including [Les] Kinsolving.  Instead, CNN was given seven and CBS and Fox six each.  Kinsolving wanted to ask if the president had any response to columnist Walter Williams' recent revelation about how race is an issue only some of the time.

The Barack and Michelle Obama Monopoly On Your Privacy.  [Scroll down]  While her husband dominates the Internet, and with only the flimsiest of qualifications, Michelle Obama has invaded the boob tube to become entertainment television's 'Cameo Queen'. [...] If name and face recognition is what wins elections, the overbearing Michelle's already got it in the bag for her husband.  Since President Obama took office in 2009, Michelle Obama has appeared on television about 44 times, and that number continues to grow.

Obama Attends Two $40,000-Per-Person Fundraisers — That Are Closed to Press.  President Barack Obama is mingling with donors at two high-dollar fundraising events, aiming to raise about $2 million toward his re-election effort.

Obama's Afghan trip: 14,000 miles for brief remarks lacking one crucial word.  Here's what Obama got politically from this stagecraft:  Bonus public attention focused on the Osama bin Laden assassination anniversary.  Photos of troops clamoring for his fist bumps.  An entire day focused on him, his words and non-stop talk of the 10-year war winding down.  An entire news day, one of only 189 precious ones left before Nov. 6, not focused on Solyndras, prostitution scandals, GSA parties, $5 trillion in new national debt, no federal budget for three years running, high unemployment, sluggish growth, legal crucifixions nor Mitt Romney.

Re-vetting wars: Obama's girlfriends speak.  One of the foremost concerns of the Obama re-election effort is the promised re-vetting of Obama, playing off the widespread perception that the media utterly failed to investigate the reality beneath the highly manufactured identity peddled in 2008.  Thus, there is a need to preemptively define the process, creating a safer version of re-vetting than the Breitbart-is-here blogosphere threatens.  The release of information about a couple of "real" girlfriends of Barack Obama in a Vanity Fair excerpt from a new biography of Obama by WaPo journalist David Maraniss fits this template.  Somehow, Maraniss discovered the identities of, and obtained the cooperation of two women who state that they dated Obama, Geneieve Cook and Alex McNear, who even provided excerpts from love letters.  I wonder if anyone helped him find these two women, because they have been hidden all these years.

White House abandons press pool again.  President Obama ditched his press pool reporter for the second time this year, leaving the reporter at an event as he returned to the White House. [...] Obama previously left the press pool at the White House in January when he decided to attend his daughter's basketball game on short notice.

The Editor says...
Obama did the same thing on January 14, 2012, and April 10, 2010.  [Update:]  He did it again on May 23, 2012.

Obama's cynical endorsement of gay marriage is a gift to Mitt Romney.  The day after North Carolina voted 60-40 to ban gay marriage, Barack Obama did what any sane politician would do and ... endorsed gay marriage.  He told ABC that he felt compelled to by the gay interns he knew, his wife, his children and Jesus.  Why did he really do it?  Sheer, naked opportunism.  Like the contraception issue before it, this is an attempt to distract from how bad the economy is.  What will Obama do next in his desperate bid for re-election?  Make a claim on the Falklands?

How President Obama played the press perfectly on gay marriage announcement.  Little happens by accident in the Obama White House, or the Obama reelection campaign for that matter — if there even is a difference between the two.  And the dramatic decision by the president to come out Wednesday [5/9/2012] in support of same-sex marriage is no exception.  Contrary to what many in the news media would have us believe, the decision was carefully planned and timed.

Gay Marriage as a Distraction.  Barack Obama has been for same-sex marriage (to the extent he is for anything other than himself) since he declared himself a supporter back in the nineties in Chicago.  He just changed his mind publicly for electoral expediency.  Now he is changing his mind back for the same reason, but it's amped up.  He wants to put Mitt Romney — who polls are showing to be a formidable presidential opponent — on the spot on an issue the governor would rather not talk about (and probably shouldn't).  Obama and his people are seeking to change the subject of this election from the dreadful financial condition of our country to same-sex marriage or anything else that sticks.

No gaiety for Obama.  In some respects, the homosexual "marriage" issue is a diversion.  Jobs and the economy are overwhelmingly the top issues in every poll of national priorities, usually followed by the federal budget deficit.  Some commentators have suggested Mr. Obama's train wreck of a stand was designed to take attention away from the dismal economy, which it won't.

Obama campaign nixes cell phones at some fundraisers.  You have to turn off your cell phone on an airplane, but at least you get to keep it.  That's not the case when high-flying donors pony up for first-class access to hear President Barack Obama at exclusive fundraisers — his campaign takes the devices away.  So much for live-tweeting or videotaping Obama's pitch.

Obama and TV News.  President Obama's recent announcement of his policy change on gay marriage made news, and not just because of the policy, but for the way in which he announced it:  In an interview with ABC's Robin Roberts.  As the Washington Post's Paul Farhi wrote, Obama's release was "controversial" in that he did not do it in the traditional ways of a press conference or an Oval Office address, but in a daytime television interview on the second-ranking network, and with a reporter who does not typically focus on politics.

How the Democratic Party lost its way.  Why is the country debating gay marriage right now?  The deficit is out of control.  The economy is stuck in neutral.  Incomes are flat.  Unemployment is stubbornly high.  Europe is on the brink of collapse.  The Middle East is on the brink of war.  So why are we talking about gay marriage?  The reason is simple:  President Obama was facing a backlash from a core Democratic constituency, namely the gay rights community, and he had to respond because he desperately needs its campaign contributions.

Weapons of Mass Distraction: Barack Obama Has No Clothes.  [Scroll down]  When a president has no discernable governing leadership skills, and nothing to which he can point as an example of the positive things he has done for his nation's economy, he must spend all his time campaigning and fundraising.  He needs lots of cash with which smear his opponents, and boatloads of it are now sailing into Port Obama from wealthy leftwing Hollywood loons and other radical advocates of homosexual marriage.

Jimmy Fallon: 'The President Booked Himself On Our Show'.  In a career lowlight for both President Obama and Jimmy Fallon, the President appeared on Fallon's late night show last month to "slow-jam" a little of the ole' big government propaganda.  This morning [5/22/2012] on the "Today Show," the spectacle continued with both Fallon AND Matt Lauer gushing like a couple of schoolgirls over the month-old show.  The news that did come from it, however, was the fact that our narcissist-in-chief booked himself on the Fallon Show.

Obama ditches reporters after golf outing.  President Obama ditched the small group of reporters that accompanied him on a golf outing Saturday [5/26/2012] at Andrews Air Force Base.  Mr. Obama arrived at Andrews in suburban Maryland at 1:08 p.m. to play golf with a foursome that included Marvin Nicholson, the White House trip director, and two other men.  That was the last time the press traveling with the president saw him.

Obama's Wasteful, Phony Photo Ops Busted.  Like many others, The Daily Oklahoman is not amused.  An editorial there questioned why in a time of out-of-control federal spending, is our opportunistic president burning up thousands of gallons of jet fuel and spending millions of taxpayer dollars for nothing more than phony photo ops to further his re-election campaign.  Actually, the photo ops proved to be unbelievably phony.

Seventy-Six Trombones and 8.2% Unemployment.  This week the economic news is so grim even the media's usual qualifier "unexpected" is meaningless.  We have grown to expect a stagnant economy on the rocks.  Meantime, the Obama campaign is heading into full conman territory, hoping like the Wizard of Oz that we'll just pay no attention to the pint sized amateur behind the curtain pulling the government levers.

Obama's Memorial Day Photo-Op Blocks Families, Vets from Vietnam Memorial for 7 Hours.  Obama's secret service shut down the memorial for most of the day, as families and veterans who had come to pay their respects to fallen loved ones were forced to stay hundreds of feet away.  Why?  So that the Narcissist-in-Chief could show up for 15-minute speech and photo-op with his carefully selected fans in the audience.

Outrage over Obama administration leaks grows in Congress.  Sen. John McCain's furor over leaks made by current and former members of President Obama's administration has prompted more lawmakers to join the call for an investigation.  McCain, who took to the Senate floor alongside Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) Tuesday [6/5/2012] to raise allegations that classified details crucial to the composition of two New York Times exposes, which exposed the extent of U.S. involvement in cyberattacks against Iran and the White House's secret "Kill List," were divulged to journalists for political reasons.

McCain: Obama Leaking Security Info to Bolster Campaign.  Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has accused the Obama administration of leaking classified information regarding intelligence operations in order to benefit Barack Obama's reelection by strengthening Obama's foreign policy credentials.  On CBS "This Morning," [6/6/2012] McCain charged, "This is the most highly classified information and it's now been leaked by the administration at the highest levels at the White House and that's not acceptable."  He intimated that the White House was "breaching national security" either by leaking the information or tacitly encouraging it.

The Obama administration is keeping open secrets.  On the one hand, the Obama administration, citing national security, asserts that the American public has little right to know anything, even after the fact, about a drone campaign that has killed many Al Qaeda terrorists.  On the other hand, the administration has turned into a veritable sieve on a range of sensitive national security matters.

Obama Labor Dept. Forces Journalists to Use Government-Issued Computers.  Journalists are crying foul at a new Obama policy that will deny them the right to use their own computers to write stories from economic data issued inside the halls of the Department of Labor.  Instead, the DoL says, journalists will have to use government-owned computers, government-selected software, and government-owned Internet transmission lines to write their stories about the data issued by the department.

The White House Leaks: Americans Need Some Answers.  The president's Friday press conference contained this precious gem:  "The idea that my White House would purposely release national-security information is offensive."  Aye, Mr. President, ' tis offensive.  That's why we'd like you to stop doing it.

ABC Portrays Obama Admin Aggressively Pursuing Security Leaks — Not As Possible Source of Them.  If an extraterrestrial had tuned into Good Morning America today and watched ABC News's report on national security leaks, he would have come away thinking the Obama administration was valiantly, aggressively pursuing the leakers.  ET wouldn't have learned that there is good reason to suspect that the source of the leaks ... is the Obama administration itself.

You don't interrupt the president.  So goes the media narrative in the wake of the media hysteria surrounding the Daily Caller's Neil Munro and his so-called "heckling" of President Obama.  Yeah, right.  This is bunk.  A pluperfect illustration of a double-standard, as was illustrated in this space yesterday with a video clip of the White House press corps not only interrupting then-President Ronald Reagan as he read a statement but then shouting and shrieking at him as he left the room.  But is there more than meets the eye in this dust-up over Mr. Munro? [...] Someone needs to say this:  There is a culture of corruption in the media world that is the White House press corps.

Obama is now using his children for political gain.
Obama daughters showing up in public comments, campaign ads.  The bump in visibility comes as President Obama uses the girls to personalize his image and his thinking on a range of public policy issues, from explaining why he placed a phone call to a college student assailed by radio talker Rush Limbaugh to his decision to support gay marriage.
[Emphasis added.]

Is President Obama Shutting out the Black Press?  According to the National Newspaper Publishers Association also known as the Black Press of America, President Obama is avoiding Black media outlets.

DOJ Censoring Reporters?  According to Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, yes.  Grassley expressed concerns the Department of Justice is censoring reporters and trying to control how they quote DOJ attorneys during public meetings yesterday during a Senate Judiciary Committee Executive Session.

Obama Imposes Sex Quota on Townhall Questions.  At an event in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Monday afternoon [7/16/2012], President Barack Obama imposed a sex quota on questions from the audience, insisting he would only take questions alternately from a female and then a male, and not two in a row from people of the same gender.  He also vowed to keep his answers short — but then managed to take only six questions with one of his answers (according to the White House transcript) extending to over 1,000 words.

Your Guide to Sleazy Democratic Party-Backed Banks.  The fat-cat narrative attacks on Republicans won't go away by making nice with the White House — or by relying on Beltway journalists to drop their double standards and vet the president's own bad bank entanglements.  Indeed, The New York Times admitted this week that their staff and other political journalists from every major media outlet submit their work to the White House for unprecedented review, editing and "veto power."

Sanitizing of quotes is disgraceful journalism.  There's something journalists you trust haven't told you:  Those quotations you're reading from top officials may not have been said by those officials during their interviews.  In a shameful journalistic acquiescence that we who covered presidents and politicians once considered unthinkable, reporters and editors are now letting officials who were interviewed review, approve and even alter quotations before publication.  We know about this only because of a fine article by The New York Times' Jeremy W. Peters.  On July 15, Peters did what every self-respecting Washington journalist should have done.

After Blocking Oil Drilling, Obama Now Posing in Front of Oil Wells.  I guess posing in front of a shuttered Solyndra factory isn't part of his campaign.  Seriously, can it get any more pathetic than this?

WH Press Corps Goes Seven Weeks Without a Question.  President Obama has not taken a serious question from the White House press corps in nearly seven weeks, a remarkable string that points to a campaign-style White House operation that is seeking to insulate the candidate from tough cross examination.

Gaffe Alert Level Three: Joe Biden Press Shop Literally Trying to Edit Media Reports.  The controversy surrounding Vice President Joe Biden's offensive claim that Republicans want to enslave black Americans has become such a concern to the Obama White House that the veep's staff have resorted to trying to directly censor the news coverage about him.  In what is widely believed to be an unprecedented move, the Biden press shop has severely restricted access to vice president and begun telling journalists what they should write about his activities as they write them up.

Democrats Want Simpson-Bowles Question Barred From Presidential Debate.  If you thought the Democrats would be satisfied with the fact that a solid phalanx of liberals have been chosen to moderate the presidential (and vice-presidential) debates, you would be wrong.  Now they want to dictate what questions will be forbidden from being asked at the debates.  I kid you not.  The Politico reports on the question that the Democrats want to make taboo:  ["]Some Democratic lawmakers want to make sure that one question does not get asked at the upcoming first presidential debate — about Simpson-Bowles.["]

The Distraction Defense: Democrats, Media Desperate to Change the Subject.  The surest sign that Democrats know they are in trouble after Paul Ryan's nomination to the Republican presidential ticket behind Mitt Romney is the desperation with which they are trying, desperately, to steer the conversation away from the economy, entitlements, and the Constitution — with the help of the media, of course.

Mark Halperin: 'The Media Is Very Susceptible to Doing What the Obama Campaign Wants'.  On the Today Show this morning, Mark Halperin said the media basically does what the Obama campaign wants them to do.  [Video clip]

Obama Knocks Romney for Not Releasing Medical Records, Hasn't Disclosed His Own.  This was brilliant timing on the president's part. [...] First off, by surprising the media, Obama knew the few good ones in there wouldn't be as ready to hit him with tough questions as they would with some notice.  Secondly, Obama knew that he would be asked about [Todd] Akin and that his response would be what got all the media attention afterwards — not any questions he might receive about his failed economy and ugly campaign.

Obama Preps Media For "Surprise" Press Conference.  A quick on-the-road communication from a longtime D.C. political operative rips the cover off of what is being reported as a surprise visit by President Barack Obama to the daily White House press briefing.  This was no surprise visit — it was a carefully planned and staged event with the complicit cooperation of White House approved media figures all intended to gain political points by reigniting the now old and tired "war on women" ploy.

Obama Programming Media to His Favor.  Obama threw the White House press corps a bone on Monday by appearing for 20 some minutes and taking a grand total of four questions from those members of the Old Media whose official job is to report from the White House.  The President has taken about six serious questions from the press since June.  But this doesn't mean he's taken no other questions from the press.  Unfortunately, the questions he has taken have not been from a free and open press but have been pre-programmed.

WH tells reporters what questions to ask Barack Obama.  Now we know why — when President Obama deigns to talk to the media — he chooses local outlets and venues such as Entertainment Tonight and People magazine.  He can overawe them by the chance to talk to a President and he can script the questions they will ask him.  So not only do we have photo-ops but also phony interviews.

Obama has millions of fake Twitter followers.  President Obama's Twitter account has 18.8 million followers — but more than half of them really don't exist, according to reports.  A new Web tool has determined that 70% of Obama's crowd includes "fake followers," The New York Times reports in a story about how Twitter followers can be purchased.

Voight: Obama controlling American media like Hugo Chavez does in Venezuela.  Award-winning actor Jon Voight told The Daily Caller at the Republican National Convention that he thinks President Barack Obama's administration has "taken over" the mainstream media in a manner similar to how leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez controls media in his country.  "The media has been taken over by this administration," Voight, an outspoken Hollywood conservative, said in an interview with TheDC.  "It's not less than what has happened in Venezuela with Hugo Chavez, really, because you can't get the information through.  I'm giving you this because I want to get the press my opinion.  You can put it in any way you want to.  But, it's become pure propaganda and we should be appalled."

Dems Using Every Trick In The Book To Distract From The Economy.  I've monitored politics since the Truman administration and what I'm witnessing right now is the most blatant use of distraction I've ever seen in the political theater.  One political party is doing absolutely everything possible to distract the electorate from giving serious thought to the nation's problem(s).  That political party is the one that features a donkey on its logo.  Day after day, hour after hour, the Democrat Party national committee has exhausted itself firing off one distraction after another in hopes you'll ignore the really serious issues and focus instead on the distractions they're offering.

TSA Launches 18 New Twitter Accounts In PR Drive.  The Transportation Security Administration has launched a staggering eighteen new Twitter accounts as part of a PR drive presumably in response to the overwhelming amount of negative publicity the federal agency receives on a routine basis.

Obama's flacks try to drown Romney's speech with digital message avalanche.  President Barack Obama's media team launched a huge wave of emails, tweets, videos and snark in the hours prior to Mitt Romney's pivotal acceptance speech in Tampa, Fla., and then another wave as Romney spoke to the convention and to the nation's voters.  Obama's flacks even quoted articles from Rolling Stone.  The volume of material seemed intended to obscure, taint and distract from Romney's carefully choreographed and emotional outreach to late-deciding swing voters, especially to women and Hispanics.

US journalists trade independence for access.  In the US, journalists are sacrificing editorial independence in exchange for access to top politicians.  The practice has a long history in Germany, where interviews often must be authorized before publication.  In democratic societies, the media has long struggled with the political class to define what information is fit to print.  While journalists seek access to high-level officials for a scoop, officialdom often does its best to control the flow of information to journalists in order to mold public opinion in its interests.

The Crack Hotels of the DNC.  I can't speak for the delegates or ther foreign dignitaries, but many of the journalists I have spoken with here are appalled at the accommodations in Charlotte to which they were assigned by the DNC.  National Review was assigned to two Knights Inn properties.  Everyone who saw them fled immediately across state lines to an available Marriott in South Carolina rather than stay there.

Obama Quashes Conservative Media Access at DNC.  Media availability for Obama officials and acolytes has been shut up as tight as a clam for conservative media here at the Democratic National Convention.  According to sources at Talk Radio News Service, placing a stringer outside the designated TV area to ask high-level Democrats to stop by radio row has been banned by the DNC — in fact, as one source told me, "You need permission from Obama for America."

Thought Police Patrol Convention's Radio Row.  Conservative talk-show hosts who came to Charlotte to interview political figures are furious.  For the first time in anyone's memory, Radio Row — the designated set of booths available to visiting talk-show hosts — has seen restrictions placed on its use by Team Obama.  DNC staffers at Radio Row will book leading Democrats for slots on conservative stations but then cancel the appearances an hour or so before broadcast "because you're not our audience." [...] So much for the transparency and openness of the Obama era.

White House Got Some Say Over Journalist's Obama StoryVanity Fair writer Michael Lewis agreed to allow the White House to approve the quotations he used from President Barack Obama in his story about the president in this month's magazine.  "Like other journalists who write about Washington and presidential politics, Mr. Lewis said that he had to submit to the widespread but rarely disclosed practice of quote approval," reports the New York Times.

Propaganda Update: TV Networks Will Be Asked to Boost ObamaCare In Plots of Their Top Shows.  Remember that the liberal media was furious that the federal government would promote the war in Iraq inside Iraq, and furious that the Department of Education would hire PR flacks like Armstrong Williams to talk up Bush education programs on cable news.  So where is their outrage at the idea that federal grants would promote ObamaCare advertising inside network TV entertainment programs?

Google Denies White House Request to Censor Anti-Muhammed Film.  Google stood up for artistic expression and to White House pressure today [9/14/2012] when it rejected a request from the Obama administration to remove an online video that mocked Muhammed.

Obama manipulates and EVADES the news media.
Obama Takes No Questions From Press Corps, Schedules Interview With Telemundo.  President Obama has been less than forthcoming with the press.  Picking and choosing his interviews is a tried and true strategy.  Don't expect him to face any serious questions from Telemundo.

Obama's Media Matters Goon Squad.  The Justice Department has been caught colluding with left-wing media "watchdog" Media Matters to suppress critics who've embarrassed the Obama administration.

Fox News: Justice Dept. thinks its collaboration with Media Matters 'not a big deal'.  The Department of Justice continues to ignore requests for comment in response to the revelation its Office of Public Affairs director Tracy Schmaler has coordinated with left-wing advocacy group Media Matters for America, and is sending signals to at least one media organization that the cabinet agency doesn't believe the collaboration has great significance.

Farenthold: Congress will likely investigate DOJ-Media Matters collusion, target group's tax-exempt status.  Texas Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold said Tuesday that he expects the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to investigate collusion between the Department of Justice and Media Matters for America, in the wake of The Daily Caller's publication of emails between the liberal messaging group's employees and a top DOJ spokeswoman.

The DOJ/Media Matters Conspiracy.  It's an odd feeling to see your name on the list of individuals targeted by the Justice Department.  Especially when you used to work there.  The DOJ's Office of Public Affairs appears to have enlisted Media Matters to serve as its unofficial PR wing — the one responsible for running smear campaigns too dirty for the Department to risk leaving fingerprints.  Media Matters is, of course, a far-left advocacy group that masquerades as a nonpartisan truth-teller and media watchdog.

October surprise: Eric Holder does his job — for a change.
Justice department charges 91 doctors, nurses, and medical professionals in $430M Medicare fraud.  Ninety-one people including doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals have been charged with committing $430 million in Medicare fraud in seven U.S. cities, Attorney General Eric Holder said on Thursday [10/4/2012].  An investigation coordinated by the U.S. Justice Department and the Department of Health and Human Services uprooted alleged false billing schemes involving $230 million in home health services, over $100 million in mental health services, and $49 million from ambulance transportation.

The Editor says...
As the election gets closer, watch for more stories like this.  Right before the presidential election, the federal government suddenly gets more efficient -- heroically taking a bite out of crime, possibly finding a cure for cancer, or protecting us all from some sort of attack.

Obama Raises $150M in September, Tries to Block 'Blockbuster' Donor Scandal.  According to the Washington Examiner, "a taxpayer watchdog group conducted a nine-month investigation" and uncovered "thousands of cases of credit card solicitations and donations" to the Obama campaign.  Many of those donations have allegedly come from overseas and may be in violation of federal election laws.  National outlets are preparing stories on the matter, and the Obama campaign has been trying to block those stories from being published.
[Emphasis added.]

Peter King: Obama admin may have given classified briefings to Daily Beast columnist.  House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Peter King is asking CIA director Gen. David Petraeus and White House national security adviser James Clapper to investigate whether a columnist for The Daily Beast received the same classified foreign policy briefings as President Barack Obama.

Reporter blocked from voters at Biden event.  Joe Vardon, a reporter with the Columbus Dispatch, says campaign aides stopped him from speaking to voters at a rally featuring Vice President Joe Biden in Canton, Ohio, today [10/22/2012].

Obama campaign rolls out its biggest prop: Air Force One.  There are a lot of benefits of incumbency, and one of them, the Obama camp knows well, is the plane.  That big, blue, beautiful plane.  Air Force One made for an awesome prop Thursday night [10/25/2012] at a tarmac rally in Cleveland.

How Obama Snookered the Biggest Newspaper in Iowa.  The flap over President Obama's off-the-record interview with the Des Moines Register's editorial board was no blunder.  It was a carefully targeted publicity stunt, aimed at reaching a critical voting bloc in Iowa, the undecided and the Latino community.  Did it work?

The Photo-Op Presidency.  The official Obama 2012 campaign slogan is "Forward."  The operational motto of the Obama administration is "Cheese."  As in "say cheese."  From hollow Greek columns to strategically released Situation Room candids, the Paparazzi President has put self-serving optics above all else. [...] White House photographer Pete Souza's Twitter feed and Flickr uploads serve as Agitprop Central for all White House-approved, behind-the-scenes-leadership glamour shots.

Cynicism Confirmed.  The national-security staff in the Obama White House has a standard operating procedure.  If a military action, such as killing bin Laden, succeeds, then immediately leak selected details to shape the narrative to the political advantage of Mr. Obama.  If the action is botched, as in Benghazi, then say nothing and tell the quiescent press that there is no story worth pursuing.  If questions persist, the second line of defense is an investigation that wlll drag on for months.

More about the Benghazi attack.

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 StoryThe 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.

Listening tour map
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 SpreadUSA 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' TodayNew 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 JournalistsNew 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 © 2023 by Andrew K. Dart


"Spontaneous" events and "randomly selected" people

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Friday night document dumps

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Notice also President Obama tells Lockheed Martin not to issue layoff notices until after election day
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Updated July 3, 2023.

©2023 by Andrew K. Dart