The fish rots from the head. The thin-skinned, slash-and-burn, Chicago Way head.

[Warph]

                               


Media: Actually, This White House Threatens Us All The Time

By Guy Benson, Townhall
3/4/2013


But they know deep down that President Obama still loves them, and that it was kind of even their fault anyway. The New York Post's Maureen Callahan chronicles the abusive and intimidating tactics the current administration employs against the press:

This administration is more skilled and disciplined than any other in controlling the narrative, using social media to circumnavigate the press. On the flip side, our YouTube culture means even the slightest gaffe can be devastating, and so you have an army of aides and staffers helicoptering over reporters. Finally, this week, reporters are pushing back. Even Jonathan Alter — who frequently appears on the Obama-friendly MSNBC — came forward to say he, too, had been treated horribly by the administration for writing something they didn't like. "There is a kind of threatening tone that, from time to time — not all the time — comes out of these guys," Alter said this week. During the 2008 campaign swing through Berlin, Alter said that future White House press secretary Robert Gibbs disinvited him from a dinner between Obama and the press corps over it. "I was told 'Don't come,' in a fairly abusive e-mail," he said. "[It] made what Gene Sperling wrote [to Woodward] look like patty-cake." "I had a young reporter asking tough, important questions of an Obama Cabinet secretary," says one DC veteran. "She was doing her job, and they were trying to bully her. In an e-mail, they called her the vilest names — bitch, c--t, a--hole." He complained and was told the matter would be investigated: "They were hemming and hawing, saying, 'We'll look into it.' Nothing happened." He wound up confronting the author of the e-mail directly. "I said, 'From now on, every e-mail you send this reporter will be on the record, and you will be speaking on behalf of the president of the United States.' That shut it down."

One correspondent says that when he inquired about a staging choice for the president's speech, he was steamrolled. "There was one specific White House aide calling me up, yelling and screaming," he says. "It was condescending and abrasive: 'Why is this a story? Why are you doing this? This is of no consequence. You're making a mountain out of a molehill.'" This went on for two days. "All I wanted," says the reporter, "was an answer to a question. It's not like I was looking to do a 12-page exposé to take down an aide. It was unnecessary vociferousness." He eventually got his statement. Another White House correspondent says that last week's blowup over pool reporters' access to the president's golf game with Tiger Woods — which was none — is indicative of a larger problem. "Today's a perfect example," he says. "Jack Lew is sworn in" — as US Treasury secretary, on Thursday — "and they didn't even allow a photographer in there. A reporter asked [press secretary] Jay Carney why, and his answer was, 'It's a family ceremony.' No! This is a high-ranking government official whose salary is paid for by taxpayers. No." "This administration has tools to reach people on their own," CBS White House correspondent Bill Plante said this week. "They don't need us as much. And to the extent that they're able to do that, they're undercutting the First Amendment, which guarantees a free press through many voices. If they put out their own material, it's state-run media."

So Team Obama isn't averse to punishing even overtly friendly media figures who step out of line, and the president who pushed a "war on women" meme in his re-election campaign employs high-level advisors who call female journalists the C-word for asking inconvenient questions. Hope and change. National Journal's Ron Fournier wrote last week about an escalating series of emails he received from a senior White House official, which eventually became so vitriolic that Fournier decided to "ice" -- or cut off -- the source altogether. In justifying both that decision and his choice to go public, Fournier cited the administration's successful bullying of younger reporters:

I changed the rules of our relationship, first, because it was a waste of my time (and the official's government-funded salary) to engage in abusive conversations. Second, I didn't want to condone behavior that might intimidate less-experienced reporters, a reaction I personally witnessed in journalists covering the Obama administration.

This was the same concern Bob Woodward raised when he initially told CNN's Wolf Blitzer about the infamous "regret" email: "I've tangled with lots of these people," he said. "But suppose there's a young reporter who's only had a couple of years — or 10 years' — experience and the White House is sending him an email saying, 'You're going to regret this.' You know, tremble, tremble. I don't think it's the way to operate." Though the context of the email exchange between Woodward and Gene Sperling clearly diminished the severity of the "threat" involved, subsequent anecdotes and confessions from other journalists have vindicated Woodward's critique of the White House press shop's culture and standard operating procedures. This isn't about one controversial email; it's about a pattern of behavior -- to say nothing of the Obama gang's subsequent campaign to marginalize and malign Woodward's reputation. Allahpundit notices that even the media whistle-blowers exhibit a strange compulsion to go out of their way to distance Obama himself from the sleazy actions of his top staff: "[Fournier] ends, as did Woodward and as any indictment of White House boorishness evidently must as a matter of professional obligation, by noting that St. Barack would surely frown upon such treatment — even though Obama chooses to surround himself with people like Rahm Emanuel and Fournier's source and he not-so-secretly disdains the media despite their adulation of him." Yes, because surely St. Barack would never condone such boorish and acerbic treatment of reporters, right? Ahem:

It's not quite eight in the morning and Barack Obama is on the phone screaming at me. He liked the story I wrote about him a couple weeks ago, but not this garbage. Months earlier, a reporter friend told me she overheard Obama call me an a--hole at a political fund-raiser. Now here he is blasting me from hundreds of miles away for a story that just went online but hasn't yet hit local newsstands. It's the first time I ever heard him yell, and I'm trembling as I set down the phone. I sit frozen at my desk for several minutes, stunned.

The fish rots from the head. The thin-skinned, slash-and-burn, Chicago Way head.

[Ross]

How the White House silenced gun control groups

President Barack Obama's gun control agenda is looking more doomed by the day, but gun control advocates still haven't said a word to complain.

That's no accident.

The White House knew its post-Newtown effort would require bringing key gun control groups into the fold. So the White House offered a simple arrangement: the groups could have access and involvement, but they'd have to offer silence and support in exchange.

The implied rules, according to conversations with many of those involved: No infighting. No second-guessing in the press. Support whatever the president and Vice President Joe Biden propose. And most of all, don't make waves or get ahead of the White House

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/how-white-house-quieted-gun-control-groups-88546.html#ixzz2Ms6UiHq0

[Ross]

Some More Deceit
Check it out Lady's
The elite protecting the elite
I'm sure glad I am not part of any elite, it sounds like a nasty word to me.

Senators outraged by Air Force dismissal of assault case

UPDATED 12:04 PM EST, March 6, 2013 | DONNA CASSATA, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senators demanded answers on Tuesday from senior military leaders on why an Air Force commander dismissed charges against a lieutenant colonel after he was convicted of sexual assault.

"Do you really think that after a jury has found someone guilty, and dismissed someone from the military for sexual assault, that one person, over the advice of their legal counselor, should be able to say, 'Never mind'?" Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., asked Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, the top officer at U.S. Central Command, at a Senate hearing.

Mattis explained that commanders, including female commanders, have the authority to act for a reason. "And I would just tell you that I would look beyond one case," he said.

[Warph]

Obama Takes 20-Car Motorcade Six Blocks To Have Dinner... Sequester? What sequester?

Ol' Tingles Worried A "Right-Wing Politician" Could Kill Jane Fonda Using A Drone...

MSNBC should be ashamed of themselves for putting obviously mental ill people on their network for us to laugh at them.


CHRIS MATTHEWS: Are concerned that we have to have this kind of debate publicly? That there is a possibility somewhere out there on the edge that a tough-- not going to say he did it-- but somebody pretty far on the far right like Dick Cheney, who has pushed waterboarding and things, will push this thing that far? Do you think it's possible that a Jane Fonda could be targeted even by the most right-wing American politician we can imagine?

EUGENE ROBINSON: I don't think anybody is going to target Jane Fonda.




Obama Admin: On Second Thought, Maybe We Won't Give Award To Anti-Semitic Egyptian Woman Who Cheered 9/11 – Update: Woman Blames Decision To Withdraw Award On "Zionist Lobby"...

The woman is already here in the U.S. and is going with the Anthony Weiner excuse... my Twitter account was hacked (presumably by the Jooooos).

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is postponing an award for an Egyptian activist who rallied worldwide attention against forced "virginity tests" on female protesters because of anti-American and anti-Semitic comments discovered on her Twitter account.

The State Department announced earlier this week that Samira Ibrahim would be among 10 recipients of the International Women of Courage award presented by Secretary of State John Kerry and first lady Michelle Obama on Friday.

But State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Thursday the U.S. would hold off on awarding Ibrahim while officials investigate the tweets, which include support for attacks against U.S. diplomatic installations and praise for a terrorist assault against Israeli citizens in Bulgaria.

Ibrahim, who has already arrived in the U.S, says her account was hacked, though the comments stretch back several months.

After five Israelis were killed in a bus explosion in July, she welcomed the "good news." In other posts, she declared Saudi Arabia's royal family "dirtier than Jews" and attributed all crimes against society to Jews and referenced Adolf Hitler. She also voiced support for the attacks against U.S. embassies and consulates on the Sept. 11 anniversary.

"We, as a department, became aware very late in the process about Samira Ibrahim's alleged public comments," Nuland told reporters. "In conversations with us in the last 24 hours, Ms. Ibrahim has categorically denied authorship. She asserts that she was hacked. But we need some time, and in order to be prudent, to conduct our own review.

Update: So I guess it's safe to assume she wasn't "hacked."

Yesterday, THE WEEKLY STANDARD first reported that the State Department was about to bestow an International Woman of Courage Award on an anti-Semite and 9/11 fan. Egypt women's rights activist Samira Ibrahim had left a record on her Twitter feed of statements quoting Hitler, celebrating the murder of Israelis in Bulgaria last summer, and the September 11, 2012 siege of the U.S. embassy in Cairo. [...]

Finally, Ibrahim herself has spoken, writing in Arabic on her Twitter page. Egyptian democracy activist Mina Rezkalla provides the translation: "I refuse to apologize to the Zionist lobby in America regarding my previous anti-Zionist statements under pressure from American government therefore they withdrew the award."




Obuma: Biden Is An "Outstanding" Vice President...



Sure he is.

Via Washington Examiner:
Joe Biden is an "outstanding" Vice President, President Obama said today in his remarks at the signing of the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization. Biden helped author the original legislation as a senator from Delaware almost 20 years ago, and has more recently been the face of the administration's campaign to tighten gun laws.

Crazy Joe Biden is also well-known for committing gaffes during public events, such as confusing countries and telling people to "just fire the shotgun through the door."

Chavez To Be Preserved And Put On Permanent Display Like Lenin And Mao

"No flash photography, please bow to the ground when passing el Commandante! Get your money out for tribute! Next!"

From AP News:

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Hugo Chavez's body will be preserved and forever displayed inside a glass tomb at a military museum not far from the presidential palace from which he ruled for 14 years, his successor announced Thursday in a Caribbean version of the treatment given Communist revolutionary leaders like Lenin, Mao and Ho Chi Minh.
Vice President Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela's acting head of state, said Chavez would first lie in state for "at least" another seven days at the military academy where he was brought Wednesday.

A state funeral will be held Friday attended by 33 heads of government, including Cuban President Raul Castro and Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks, a New York Democrat, and former Rep. William Delahunt, a Democrat from Massachusetts, will represent the United States, which Chavez often portrayed as a great global evil even as he sent the country billions of dollars in oil each year.

Maduro said the ceremony would begin at 11 a.m., but did not say where.

"We have decided to prepare the body of our 'Comandante President,' to embalm it so that it remains open for all time for the people. Just like Ho Chi Minh. Just like Lenin. Just like Mao Zedong," Maduro said.


Kinda thought they'd display him at a CITGO station...  you know, with three fill-ups, you can have Chavez' carcass displayed in your living room for a week... the vultures and hyenas are optional.

....Warph

[Warph]

Indelible Presidential Quotes: