‘Scandalous Hat Trick’: Sarah Palin Shreds Obama & His Scandal-Embroiled White House

Associated Press (AP)

May 16, 2013 9:37pm - Becket Adams – TheBlazeTV

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin posted a lengthy message to her Facebook wall Thursday criticizing the Obama administration for its handling the Benghazi, IRS, and Associated Press phone records scandals:

Scandalous Hat Trick

Mr. President, when it rains it pours, but most Americans hold their own umbrellas. Today in the Rose Garden you dismissed the idea of a Special Counsel to investigate the IRS scandal. With that, your galling political hubris shined bright in the midst of today’s dark clouds.

Mr. President, how can we trust your Justice Department to conduct an independent investigation when there is a systemic violation of the Hatch Act throughout your administration?

Surely you are aware that the Hatch Act prevents certain federal employees from engaging in political activity. Specifically, it’s illegal for these federal employees to engage in action in support of or in opposition to a political party, a candidate for partisan political office, or a partisan political group.

Yet that is exactly what’s happened within the IRS, the Justice Department, and in the Benghazi cover-up. This scandalous hat trick is on your watch. It is not believable that you knew nothing about Obama administration actions in dealing with these scandals. And in regards to Benghazi, when you should have taken appropriate action to save American lives – for instance by calling in the Marines – you were AWOL. Just weeks before the election your team scrubbed the Benghazi talking points in 12 different versions, lied to the American people about some YouTube video being to blame for the deaths of brave Americans who put our country first, and you prove Michael Barone right when he writes, “What actually happened in Benghazi was out of sync with the Obama campaign line.” That’s why you all did what you did. Pure raw politics were at play during a horrific time of loss.

For more evidence of Hatch Act violations right under your nose, simply consider DOJ’s “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into the free press. Do you think they picked up some political talk when tapping the phones in the House press gallery?

Your team is out of control. Those who cannot remember the past and learn from it are doomed to repeat it, and that is exactly what is happening. Look back exactly 40 years ago this week and apply that disheartening chapter of American history to the team you’ve chosen and lead today.

Some of us warned America; we cautioned voters in 2008 that a community organizer with no executive experience and no sense of accountability would be a very poor choice for the nation’s top management position.

Mr. President, you said today that you have “complete confidence” in the Attorney General. America doesn’t. Eric Holder needs to appoint an unbiased Special Counsel to investigate the illegal political action of this administration. And then Eric Holder needs to resign.

Most Americans see ominous dark clouds looming beyond the White House Rose Garden, Mr. President. They’ll roll away only when light is shined on the Obama administration’s antics, and America will only recover when you cease avoiding responsibility in this mission of yours to fundamentally transform America. For that to happen, the press had better learn from their experiences of being duped and provide a deserving public fairer, more intelligent coverage.

Speaking of coverage, glad you finally called in the Marines… shame it was just to hold your umbrella.

- Sarah Palin

Well then. Tell us how you really feel.

Follow Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) on Twitter

(H/T: Right Scoop). Featured image Getty Images.

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Beck Ties Together Benghazi, IRS, & AP Scandals: ‘Fundamental Transformation’

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2016 – The Election of the First Female President of the United States?

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The Media is the Real Enemy

By: James Simpson -  Right Side News

If you are a regular reader of Right Side News, you know that we bring you in-depth reporting on a broad range of issues in one convenient place. The last conference “The Most Important News Conference in History Part I” and Part II was widely read and shared across the internet and social networks.

The following article details a day-long conference held by Accuracy in Media on September 19th. This conference on the eye-popping media bias in favor of President Obama brings much new information to the table. Please read it in its entirety.

Since 1969, Accuracy in Media has striven to bring accuracy and balance to media reporting. Given that the Left-driven mass media daily overlooks, misrepresents or suppresses the truth to serve their agenda, this has been a valiant, David vs Goliath, if not a Don Quixote effort. But AIM soldiers on, bringing to light countless articles and exposés that shine a light on press bias while providing in-depth reporting about the real issues.

With this in mind, AIM recently held a day-long conference, “Obamanation; a Day of Truth.” This conference highlighted the media’s alarming reluctance to report or investigate anything derogatory about President Obama, and cataloged the many instances where, to the contrary, they shamelessly hype the President and suppress embarrassing information, while collaborating to attack and discredit his political rivals. Lately this has included the unprecedented step of suppressing vital information about the nature of the Benghazi attacks merely to shield the President from embarrassing revelations so close to the election.

Conference presenters included the following list of prominent policy experts and public figures:

• Richard Benedetto, former White House correspondent, USA TODAY, national political correspondent.
• Deneen Borelli, Outreach Director for FreedomWorks, author of Blacklash: How Obama and the Left Are Driving Americans to the Government Plantation.
• Pat Caddell, former Democratic pollster turned mainstream political critic, political film consultant, “The Hope and the Change,” 2012.
• Jack Cashill, investigative reporter, author of Deconstructing Obama and a host of other books.
• Artur Davis, former Democratic Congressman, and national co-chair for Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.
• John Fund, senior editor, American Spectator, expert on voter fraud and the American election process, co-author, Who's Counting?: How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk.
• Frank Gaffney, president, Center for Security Policy, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy under Reagan, co-author of Shariah: The Threat To America: An Exercise In Competitive Analysis (Report of Team B II).
• Roger Aronoff, Editor of Accuracy in Media; producer/director of six documentaries, including “Confronting Iraq: Conflict and Hope.”
• Bishop E.W. Jackson, Sr., founder of Exodus Faith Ministries, Chesapeake, Va., candidate, U.S. Senate from Virginia, 2012, President of S.T.A.N.D.
• Cliff Kincaid, Director, AIM Center for Investigative Journalism.
• Edward Klein, former Newsweek Foreign Editor & NY Times Magazine Editor-in-Chief, author of The Amateur, the NYT bestseller about the Obama White House.
• Andrew McCarthy, journalist, author of The Grand Jihad & Spring Fever, former federal prosecutor, co-author, Shariah: The Threat To America: An Exercise In Competitive Analysis (Report of Team B II).
• Dr. Betsy McCaughey, health policy expert, former Lt. Governor of New York, commentator on hazards of ObamaCare, President, Defend Your Healthcare.
• John Merline, Senior Writer Investor’s Business Daily.
• Katie Pavlich, Editor of TownHall.com and author of Fast and Furious: Barack Obama's Bloodiest Scandal and the Shameless Cover-Up.
• U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and the founder and head of Congress’s Media Fairness Caucus.

Full bios of all speakers can be viewed here. The forum was hosted by AIM Editor Roger Aronoff.

Each presenter gave a prepared statement for 15–20 minutes followed by a question and answer session. The more animated speakers are often people who at one time worked with the Left. This was certainly true for at least one of AIM’s guests.

America’s True Enemy

Longtime Democrat Pat Caddell, who worked for Democratic Presidential candidates from 1972 to 1992, presented what was not really a speech but more of an impassioned plea. He came right out and called main stream media “the Enemy,” citing by name the Washington Post, the New York Times, ABC, NBC and CBS.

Caddell said that journalists have been biased for decades but when they decide, “…what truth that you may know, as an American, and what truth you are not allowed to know, they have, then, made themselves a fundamental threat to the democracy, and, in my opinion, made themselves the enemy of the American people.” (Emphasis added.)

He said:

“I think we’re at the most dangerous time in our political history in terms of the balance of power in the role that the media plays in whether or not we maintain a free democracy… the overwhelming bias has become very real and very dangerous.”

Caddell cited a Gallup poll showing that Americans have the least faith in the news of any time in history. 60 percent said they had little or no trust in the media to report news accurately and fairly. Not surprisingly this split is partisan: 58 percent of Democrats claim to trust the coverage while only 26 percent of Republicans do. Only 31 percent of independents have a high degree of trust, a fact that should alarm Obama and the Democrats.

The Audacity of Corruption

Calling his presentation “The Audacity of Corruption,” Caddell offered stunning examples of media silence regarding what should be major stories. For example, while Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans died due to virtually nonexistent security at the Benghazi consulate – a known hotspot – Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett continues to have a full-time Secret Service detail, even on vacations. Caddell revealed that just prior to replacing David Axelrod as Senior Advisor to President Obama, former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe was paid $100,000 by an Iranian front group to give two speeches in Nigeria. Caddell stated:

… here’s a man who’s being paid by an already named front group for… a terrorist regime, and is not asked about it, or queried about it!

Caddell made a number of stunning revelations and pointed observations:

• $16.4 billion – 80 percent – of Obama “Green Energy” loans went to firms owned or invested in by individuals “ who were bundlers, members of Obama’s National Finance Committee, or large donors to the Democratic Party.” No media coverage.
• Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s number one goal is to obtain release for Blind Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, mastermind of the 1993 WTC bombing. No media coverage.
• An intelligence source asserts that the White House and State Department are negotiating that release now! No media coverage.
• White House National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, an unscrupulous political hack with no experience in national security, is the reputed White House leaker. No media coverage.
• The press gives Democrats hundreds of millions in in-kind contributions through their relentless bias and PR campaign for Obama.
• Republicans are unwilling to challenge the media. This needs to STOP.
• Too many Republicans, Like Romney advisor Ed Gillespie, who works with former Clinton attorney Jack Quinn, won’t rock the boat because they want to preserve relationships.

He noted the press response to Libya:

.. we’ve had nine days of lies over what happened because they can’t dare say it’s a terrorist attack, and the press won’t push this. Twenty American embassies, yesterday, were under attack. None of that is on the national news. None of it is being pressed in the papers. If a President of either party—I don’t care whether it was Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton or George Bush or Ronald Reagan or George H. W. Bush—had a terrorist incident, and got on an airplane after saying something, and flown off to a fundraiser in Las Vegas, they would have been crucified!

Caddell also lambasted the Romney campaign for its ineptitude in calling out either Obama or the media on these eye-popping lapses:

This is not without accomplices, because the incompetence of the [Mitt] Romney campaign, which I said a week ago is the—my God!—the worst campaign in my lifetime, and the Republican establishment in general’s inability to fight, has allowed these things to happen in part because they don’t [fight].

I urge you to watch Caddell’s presentation in its entirety. He delivers a message we cannot overlook.

Caddell was genuinely angry and one of the most animated speakers of the day, but he was not the only one.

Gaffney and McCarthy:

Muslim Infiltration into the United States

Frank Gaffney and Andrew McCarthy both spoke about Muslim infiltration into the United States. They covered too much ground to be adequately described in this essay.

(Andrew McCarthy transcript and video here: Andy McCarthy – “Holder’s Department of Injustice”)

Gaffney has created a free online video series titled, “The Muslim Brotherhood in America: A Course in 10 parts.” Each video is about 20 minutes and very well done. Points raised:

• Shariah is a totalitarian doctrine. Its adherents – notably, the Muslim Brotherhood – seek to bring it here.
• Shariah is principally about power, not faith. Accordingly, acting to realize its political end of overthrowing the U.S. government is seditious and must be prosecuted not treated as protected religious practice.
• In most countries where it operates, the Brotherhood is in a pre-violent phase.
• The Muslim Brotherhood’s strategic plan is a “civilization-jihadist process… a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within” by our hands.
• Civilization jihad is being pursued through stealthy means involving the penetration and subversion of civil society and governing institutions.
• The military calls “information dominance,” the Brotherhood’s effort to keep us ignorant of the threat. They have been increasingly effective at this over the past ten years.
• The Muslim Brotherhood was helped in its efforts to achieve information dominance over the George W. Bush administration, thanks to collaboration between al Qaeda financier, Abdurahman Alamoudi, and anti-tax activist Grover Norquist.

See Part I of 10: The Muslim Brotherhood in America below and all 10 Parts HERE.

Alamoudi is currently serving a 23 year sentence for helping finance a plot to murder Saudi Crown Prince (now King) Abdullah. In the 1990s, Alamoudi’s American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council received certification from the Defense Department to approve Muslim chaplains for the U.S. armed forces in the 1990s. He participated, with the ACLU in creating legal justifications for limiting Christmas celebrations in public schools.

• Norquist helped mainstream in the Bush campaign and/or administration five other Muslims with extensive ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. They were: the Islamic Free Market Institute’s Khalid Saffuri, CAIR’s Nihad Awad, Palestinian Jihad’s Sami al-Arian, the Fiqh Council’s Muzzamil Siddiqi and Suhail Khan, a former staffer for Rep. Tom Campbell of California.
• In his capacity as the de facto Muslim gatekeeper in the Office of Public Liaison under senior Bush advisor Karl Rove, and then as an assistant in the personal office of the Secretary of Transportation, Khan had, at a minimum, an opportunity to facilitate the penetration of other Islamists.
• Both during and after the Bush administration, Norquist has used various organizations to promote Islamist agendas. These have included Red-Green coalitions made up of radical and other leftists and Muslim Brotherhood front groups.
• Norquist has worked for years to “create relations with top political leaders and Muslims,” including running Muslims for elective office as Republicans. Three of his protégés – Kamal Nawash, Faisal Gill and Imad “David” Ramadan – have run for state legislative seats in Virginia.
• Norquist continues to support Islamist agenda items and to work to counter initiatives opposed by the Brothers. He has collaborated with radical leftists and Islamists in Red-Green Coalitions, the latter include Iranian influence operations.
• The precedents, personnel and policies promoted by Norquist and his friends during the George W. Bush administration have metastasized under President Obama.
• Notably, six Islamist-sympathizers have achieved positions within or advisory roles serving Team Obama: Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation Rashad Hussein; Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Huma Abedein; Presidential advisor Dalia Mogahed; FBI Citizens Academy graduate Kifah Mustafa; Homeland Security Advisory Committee Member Mohamed Elibiary and Homeland Security Countering Violent Extremism Working Group Member Mohamed Magid.
• Muslim Brotherhood successes include policies and directives emanating from the White House, and priorities and activities of: the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Departments of State, Justice, Defense and Homeland Security and even NASA.

There is an urgent need for rigorous congressional oversight and investigations aimed at exposing the extent of the civilization jihad – and the need for corrective action aimed at countering it, particularly by federal authorities.

McCarthy added that Muslims believe Shariah is Allah’s gift to the world. He quoted the President of Turkey, who said, “Democracy is the train to our destination.”

Gaffney left the audience with a final remark that the Strait of Hormuz may close shortly.

Betsy McCaughey: Death Panel Reality and the Destruction of Medicare

In-Depth AIM Interview with Betsy McCaughey

Dr. Betsy McCaughey is perhaps the foremost expert on Obamacare. She was also instrumental in defeating Hillary Clinton’s similar socialized medicine scheme back in 1994. She was the first health care policy expert to warn of the impending Obamacare proposals in 2009.

She revealed that Obama healthcare advisor, Ezekiel Emanuel, former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s brother, advocated what have become known as “Death Panels.” The media ridiculed Sarah Palin for warning about them, and McCaughey was similarly reviled in the press for spreading “false rumors.” Obamacare advocates and their media defenders disingenuously argued that the Obamacare bill contained no such provision.

The truth, McCaughey revealed, was that the framework for their creation was already codified in law through a provision snuck into the stimulus bill. Now, one of Obama’s closest advisors, former Car Czar Steven Rattner, is admitting that Obamacare will require rationing in a New York Times Op Ed subtitled “We need death panels.”

This is big news! Sarah Palin was right all along (we knew that of course.) Where is the media mea culpa? Where is the media coverage even?

Crickets.

In this conference, Dr. McCaughey described in detail how Obamacare is going to ruin Medicare. She again raised the specter of death panels and explained that Obamacare requires extreme cuts to Medicare that will necessitate commensurate cuts in healthcare services to seniors. Some of the life-saving procedures that are routine today will become completely unavailable, and the necessary rationing will begin. Some key points:

• Obamacare cuts $247 billion from hospital Medicare reimbursements over ten years.
• Since Medicare already reimburses hospitals less than service costs, this will necessitate service reductions.
• This and other budget cuts will reduce nursing and other hospital staff by 93,000.
• Beginning in October 2012, the Obama administration will reward hospitals that spend less on seniors and penalize those that spend more.
• Cuts will eventually cause an estimated 40 percent of hospitals to operate at a loss.
• 15 percent of hospitals may stop accepting Medicare patients.
• An estimated 35,000 seniors will die annually as the result of reduced care.

Bishop E.W. Jackson, Sr.: The Constitution, Founding Fathers and Religious Freedom

Bishop E.W. Jackson, Sr. campaigned for Virginia’s U.S. Senate seat in the GOP primaries. He spoke on religious liberty and the Constitution, noting how the Obama administration demonstrates contempt for the Constitution every day. “I think we are being led by people who don’t respect our Constitution. They just fundamentally don’t think it’s important,” he said.

He quoted EEOC Commissioner Chai Feldblum who has said “Sexual freedom must always win over the First Amendment.” Even though sexual freedom’s not mentioned in the Constitution and the First Amendment is the first right that’s recognized by the Constitution, she says, “No, no, no, the First Amendment liberties of the American people must give way.”

Jackson said that Republicans have an historic opportunity to reach out to blacks due to this administration’s radical stances on abortion and gay marriage, which most blacks strongly disagree with.

Bishop Jackson’s presentation can be viewed in its entirety and transcript, here, or watch below.

John Fund: Voter Suppression and the Corrupt Machines

John Fund has written two books on voter fraud: Who's Counting? and Stealing Elections  and is an acknowledged expert on the issue. Fund discussed the Left’s effort to mischaracterize voter integrity efforts as minority “voter suppression,” resurrecting yet again the race card. The sad truth he explained, is that inner city minorities do suffer voter suppression because those areas are usually controlled by corrupt leftist political machines. Reform democrats have attempted to change the system but have been prevented from doing so by the corrupt machines. Minorities suffer poor schools, poor services, with high taxes and high crime, while their votes are literally stolen by corrupt politicians. The idea that voter ID laws suppress the minority vote is absurd. 75 percent of voters favor photo ID laws for voting. Even liberal democrats favor voter ID laws.

Jack Cashill

Jack Cashill has published many books and wrote a series of articles asserting that Obama neighbor and domestic terrorist Bill Ayers wrote Obama’s “autobiography” Dreams from My Father (which has now been edited and re-written to remove references to Frank Marshall Davis and other incriminating material). Despite impeccable journalistic credentials, including ghostwriting books for other authors, Cashill’s stories have been completely ignored by the media – even conservative media. Subsequently, Author Christopher Andersen interviewed people who knew Obama for his biography. They said that Obama was unable to meet deadlines and submitted tapes, notes and a partially written manuscript for Ayers to complete. So Cashill has been vindicated, but the media will still not acknowledge the truth.

Cashill says, “Obama did not write Dreams. Period.” In his research, Cashill stumbled across Ayers’ book, “Fugitive Days” and surmised that Ayers had the same ghost writer as Obama because the writing was so similar. Then he learned that Ayers had exemplary writing skills, and due to his time as a merchant seaman, uses many nautical metaphors – metaphors which appear repeatedly in Dreams. The few original works credited to Obama, e.g. his anti-war essay from Columbia, were fraught with errors.

Edward Klein

Klein is a former New York Times writer with impeccable credentials. He has written a book about Obama titled, “The Amateur.” He thoroughly researched the book, including an interview with Obama’s controversial pastor, Jeremiah Wright. He spent three hours with Wright, who said that Obama representatives visited him numerous times in secret trying to convince him to shut up. Klein’s book makes the case that Obama is “Temperamentally unsuited for executive leadership.” Klein quotes Majority Leader John Boehner as saying that Obama “doesn’t know who makes decisions, how they make decisions or who is in charge.” Klein added that Obama is “in revolt” against the system that elected him, and that, “Every single black businessman I spoke to said they were disappointed with Obama’s performance.”

Katie Pavlich

Katie Pavlich has written an authoritative book on the Fast and Furious scandal. She reported that the recent DOJ Inspector General report regarding the scandal was written largely by longtime Eric Holder friend, former IG Cynthia Schnedar, even though it is signed by the current IG, Michael Horowitz, an employee in the job only five months. With Fast and Furious, the goal was to regulate gun stores out of business, not legislate them out of business. Katie’s entire presentation can be viewed here. Roger Aronoff has written a good summary, here.

In the coming days, videos of all presenters will be available at the AIM website, here.

James Simpson is a freelance journalist, businessman and former White House budget analyst. His writings have also been published on Right Side News, Big Government, Big Peace, Emerging Corruption, American Thinker, Washington Times, WorldNetDaily, FrontPage Magazine, Soldier of Fortune and others. His blog is Truth & Consequences.

Technorati Tags: authors,truth,enemies within,enemies,MSM,media,news,liberal bias media,bias liberal media,journalism,jounolists,smoke and mirrors,watch the other hand,Cliff Kincaid

Hillary Clinton Aide Tells Reporter To “F _ck Off” And “Have A Good Life”

BuzzFeed Politics:

As the State Department's story about what happened in Benghazi crumbles, Clinton's personal spokesperson, Philippe Reines, loses his temper. “Have a good day. And by good day I mean Fuck Off.”

Clinton and Reines in China in 2010. Source: farm5.staticflickr.com

Posted Sep 24, 2012 1:11pm EDT

On Sunday morning, BuzzFeed correspondent Michael Hastings emailed Philippe Reines, Hillary Clinton's longtime aide and personal spokesman at the State Department, asking a series of pointed questions about State's handling of the Benghazi fiasco, and Reines' over-the-top attack on CNN. The emails quickly got personal, with Reines calling Hastings an "unmitigated asshole" before an exchange of harsh words on both sides.

The email chain concluded with Reines writing that Hastings should "Fuck Off" and "Have a good life."

The full exchange (with one typo fixed) is below.

From: Michael Hastings
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2012 10:32 AM
To: Reines, Philippe I
Subject: Request for comment

Hey Philippe:

A few quick questions for you. Why didn't the State Department search the consulate and find AMB Steven's diary first? What other potential valuable intelligence was left behind that could have been picked up by apparently anyone searching the grounds? Was any classified or top secret material also left? Do you still feel that there was adequate security at the compound, considering it was not only overrun but sensitive personal effects and possibly other intelligence remained out for anyone passing through to pick up? Your statement on CNN sounded pretty defensive--do you think it's the media's responsibility to help secure State Department assets overseas after they've been attacked?

Let me know if you have a second.Michael

______________________________________
On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 11:28 AM, Reines, Philippe I wrote:

Good morning Michael

I'm adding my colleague Toria Nuland who I believe you know. She has addressed much of your questions below during her daily press briefings, so I'll let her weigh in to remind you of what's already been thoroughly answered. As far as the tone of my email, I think you're misreading mine as much as I'm misreading yours as being needlessly antagonistic.

But on your questions pertaining to CNN's handling of the diary:

• You know that all USG personnel were evacuated from Benghazi after the attack. So I'm not sure why you're asking why State didn't find the diary first.

• On material, I'll let Toria reiterate, but the answer is no. Though you might want to ask CNN if they took anything else from the crime scene that they haven't yet told anyone about.

• In terms of the media's responsibility, I'll start with the outlandish statement that I believe the media does have responsibilities. Your question seems to imply they have none and any expectation of responsible behavior is too much to ask. To be specific:I believe CNN had the responsibility to act as human beings and be sensitive to their loss when they first approached the family.

I believe CNN had a responsibility to not make promises to the family it would not keep.

If that's too much to ask, I believe CNN had at the very least a responsibility to make their intentions on the use of Chris's diary clear to the family from the outset.

I believe CNN had a responsibility to not deceive its own viewers for more than 48 hours on the source of their reporting, using convoluted attribution they themselves had to clarify, before admitting it was the diary they were relying on.

I believe that when they finally did admit to using Chris's diary, they had a responsibility to their viewers and to the family to explain why they broke their pledge.

I believe that many within CNN agree with everything I'm saying.

More than anything else, I believe that CNN - since they had already read every word of the diary before calling the family on Friday the 14th, the day Chris's remains were returned home - had all the information they needed at that point to make an editorial decision on whether the contents of the diary compelled them to report on it. I believe the time to invoke their standards to justify using the diary came six days late. I believe that CNN, if they felt strongly that they had an obligation to use the diary should never have presented the family with a choice in the first place that they'd later disregard.

I don't believe that CNN should get credit for issuing a flimsy confession only when caught with their hands in the cookie jar. I believe the statement CNN issued late last night, 24 hours after Anderson Cooper's ill-conceived statement on air, basically says they agreed not to use it until they didn't feel like it anymore, and only admitted to it when they were about to be caught. I don't believe that's much of a profile in courage.

Lastly, I believe that you of all people, after famously being accused of violating agreed upon ground rules and questionable sourcing, would agree that it's important for a news organization to maintain its own integrity if it is to be trusted. That begins with keeping its word. If you can't manage that, then don't give it.

I realize that the way this works is that you only you get to ask me questions, but I have one for you: if you were in Benghazi, went to the scene of the attack, found the ambassador's diary, read every word of it, would you have called them and asked their permission to use it, then when you weren't granted that permission agree that you wouldn't use it in any way, and then a few days later just change your mind?

If the answer is yes, then you obviously agree that CNN handled this perfectly fine.

If the answer is no, if you would have decided its contents demanded reporting immediately, how would you have handled this differently then CNN?

And you should feel free to use every word above, in its entirety. Though I suspect you won't.

Philippe

______________________________________
From: Michael Hastings
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2012 12:04 PM
To: Reines, Philippe I Cc: Nuland, Victoria J
Subject: Re: Request for comment

Philippe:

Thanks for getting back to me. No, you read my email correctly--I found your statement to CNN offensive.

From my perspective, the scandal here is that the State Department had such inadequate security procedures in place that four Americans were killed. And then the Ambassador's diary--and who knows what else--was left behind for anyone to pick up. Thankfully, it was CNN--and not Al Qaeda or some other militia--that found it and was able to return it to the family. That CNN used portions of the material in the diary they found at the scene--material that appears to contradict the official version of events that State/WH has been putting out--is completely in line with practices of good journalism.

I don't know how involved Arwa Damon has been in this. But for what it's worth, Arwa is one of the best war correspondents working today. She's consistently risked her life to get these stories, and to find out what actually happens in these conflict zones.I do agree that the media has lots of responsibilities, and CNN fulfilled its responsibility by returning the diary while still managing to inform the American public of newsworthy information. So it's unfortunate that you are trying to make a scapegoat out of CNN. That State was forced to flee Benghazi--again, because of such inadequate security, leaving behind all sorts of sensitive information--tells us more about DoS than CNN.

The misinformation here seems largely to be coming from State and the administration. The defense that the administration has offered that there was no intelligence warning of an attack is weak. If there was no intel, then clearly the CIA and other intel agents stationed in Benghazi weren't doing their jobs well. If there was intel, then we have some kind of cover-up--whether out of incompetence or ass covering before the election or just the trauma of losing four good men, it's hard for me to say at this point.

All the best,

Michael

______________________________________
On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 12:45 PM, Reines, Philippe I wrote:

Why do you bother to ask questions you've already decided you know the answers to?

______________________________________
From: Michael Hastings
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2012 12:50 PM
To: Reines, Philippe I Cc: Nuland, Victoria J
Subject: Re: Request for comment

Why don't you give answers that aren't bullshit for a change?

______________________________________
On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 1:38 PM, Reines, Philippe I wrote:
I now understand why the official investigation by the Department of the Defense as reported by The Army Times The Washington Post concluded beyond a doubt that you're an unmitigated asshole.

How's that for a non-bullshit response?

Now that we've gotten that out of our systems, have a good day.

And by good day, I mean Fuck Off

______________________________________
From: Michael Hastings
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2012 01:40 PM
To: Reines, Philippe I Cc: Nuland, Victoria J
Subject: Re: Request for comment

Hah--I now understand what women say about you, too! Any new complaints against you lately?

______________________________________
On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 1:48 PM, Reines, Philippe I wrote:

Talk about bullshit - answer me this: Do you only traffic in lies, or are you on the ground floor of creating them?

And since Fuck Off wasn't clear enough, I'm done with you. Inside of 5 minutes when I can log into my desktop, you'll be designated as Junk Mail.

Have a good life Michael.

______________________________________
From: Michael Hastings
Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 1:50 PM
Subject: Re: Request for comment
To: "Reines, Philippe I" Cc: "Nuland, Victoria J"

I'll take that as a non-denial denial.

All the best,

Michael

Technorati Tags: Hillary,Hillary Clinton,Benghazi,State Department,reporters,media,Hillary Aide,Hillary Clinton Aide,watch the other hand,Philippe Reines

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No Marines for Libyan Ambassador, Full Security Detail for Valerie Jarrett Vacation

REPORT: Obama administration was warned about attacks, did nothing

Body of lies from Benghazi to Barack — Comprehensive investigative report

Video: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Hussein Obama are so busy apologizing because they agreed to UN Resolution 16/18

Winston Churchill once said, “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last…

U.S. Embassy Attacked: CNN Breaking News @ 14:06 EDST on 9/11, From Egypt… Then Libya, No Comments From Obama – Updated

Manifesto Puts Hillary’s Deputy Chief In Middle Of Muslim Plot – Please Read more:

 Final UN Arms Trade Treaty Disarms America With Clinton’s Signature  -  Waiting For The ‘Hammer To Fall’ – U.N. Small Arms Treaty Passes During Second Session…  But remember… CFR Says Don’t Worry About Hillary’s Small Arms Treaty

Alert: Hillary Clinton Deputy Chief of Staff Tied to Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda

Breaking Hillaryland News: New Evidence Shows Hillary a Mastermind Behind Gunwalker as Her Welcome in Egypt Not So Good

Obama, Clinton Selling Out U.S. Sovereignty In Secret

And Just when you think it can’t get much worse:

Monica Lewinsky Is Back - Gets Bill and Hillary Clinton into Big Trouble Again

Yet Obama Sends These Two Clowns to Represent Him and Us at the UN with the Leaders of the World Including Those from the Middle East… Really? Feeling Safe??

EU Times:

World-famous mistress of former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s Monica Lewinsky decided to make some more money on her controversial past. Lewinsky will write memoires. The former White House trainee negotiates the details of her book with major publishers.

Reportedly, the forgotten sex scandal star has already requested $12 million for her confessions, including those about her relationship with Clinton. Many believe that her story is not worth the money. However, Lewinsky has not signed the deal, although several publishers are interested in the publication of the book.

Meanwhile, American journalists try to show as much humor as they can in their comments about the Lewinsky confessions, BFM.Ru reports. TJ Walker, a famous columnist with Forbes and The Wall Street Journal tried to guess what the new book was going to be about: “What is it? A time capsule? What time is it? 1998? It’s been 14 years since we had to look at this woman day after day. She got her millions from that. She had her Barbara Walters sit-down. And now she is going to write another book. What in the world is she going to say in it? Is it – “nobody has given a damn about me for 14 years?” Second chapter: “I am an idiot. I’ve never done anything interesting in my entire life other than fooling around with the president.” Chapter Three: “I’ve done a handbag campaign and a bunch of other things, but they all were a failure because everyone thought of me as that one thing.”

Monica has not confirmed her plans about the memories yet, but her friends told reporters what her new book could be about. According to one of them, she can share what she knows about Bill’s insatiable desires for threesomes, orgies and sex toys of all kinds, RBC says.

The president’s ex-lover recalled how he spoke disparagingly of his wife, calling her a “cold fish” and making fun of her “non-existent sex life.” Bill Clinton also suggested that Hillary had also cheated on him.

Rumor has it that Hillary Clinton knows about Lewinsky’s plans and is furious about it, Express Gazeta wrote. If the book is ever published, the sitting secretary of state will hardly ever become president.

Of course the possibility of a Hillary Clinton presidency is all but gone now, anyway, now that Americans realize that it was Hillary who made the decision not to send Marines to our Consulate in Benghazi Libya that resulted in the murder and torture of our Ambassador Christopher Stevens and 3 additional Americans, added to by 9-days of lies by Hillary herself, the State Department and the White House about the cause of the events in Egypt, the terror attack on American soil (our Consulate) in Libya and throughout the Middle East and much of the world.

Related:

Bill, Ted, Antonio, Joe, Debbie and Friends Take Us All to an Alternative Universe….

Technorati Tags: the Clintons,CNN,Hillary,Hillary Clinton,Benghazi,State Department,reporters,media,Monica Lewinsky,watch the other hand,Bill Clinton,Democrat Party,destroying America,Alinskyites,circus diplomacy,rights of the child,UN small arms treaty,Huma Abedin Weiner,Michael Hastings. The Clintons,Libya

I’m ‘Just’ A Blogger

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton - The NoisyRoom

From The Honolulu Advertiser: In 1728, Ben Franklin opened a printing office in Philadelphia. He produced a newspaper called The Pennsylvania Gazette and his annual Poor Richard’s Almanack.

Journalism used to be an honorable profession dating back to the time of the heralds. Journalism is writing history in real time. It isn’t the business of peering backwards through a glass darkly in a retrospective. It isn’t consensus. It isn’t repeating the meme. It isn’t filtered for political correctness or partisanship. It’s raw and, in its pure form, the unvarnished reality – the deeply disturbing photo of a summary execution, the hysterical observation of the conflagration of a crashing Zeppelin or the fearless observation that a government official has violated both the law of the land – even including the Constitution – and international treaties by supplying arms to active criminals in a subversive effort to abrogate the rights of his own citizenry.

Journalism isn’t who you are, journalism is what you do. It is the courage to tell the truth regardless of personal risk. And so it used to be; today though, we live in an age where being a “professional journalist” means having a license to lie.

When I first saw the video above, I was overcome by several emotions. The first of which was incredulity closely followed by anger as I just could not believe how viciously Juan Williams attacked Michelle Malkin, slinging at her what he considered an insult: “I’m a real reporter, I’m not a blogger out in the blogosphere somewhere…” He couldn’t debate her in the present with a solid retort, so he resorted to what he deemed insults. When Williams was unjustly fired from NPR, the entire conservative blogosphere stood up as one and defended him vociferously. Let’s see, it took him a matter of seconds to revert to his bitter liberal ways, I believe. Juan, I’ve got news for you. The old media is dead, not dying, dead. The new media is what real journalism is – unfettered, real and in your face. A reporter used to make his bones as a journalist by breaking a big story and I do believe you’ve forgotten what that is like. You can just toddle off back to your dinosaur media roots, where all you have to do is look good and pretend to be wise while your viewership slips into oblivion. It’s time for the big boys and girls to roll up their sleeves and do the real work you faux journalists can’t be bothered to do.

If being a true journalist is defined by bravery, ethics, excellent writing and oratory skills – well Juan Williams doesn’t begin to compare to Michelle Malkin. He also obviously has poor manners and is like a cornered badger when he is losing an argument – he bites first and asks questions later (in an arrogant, condescending manner of course). Malkin is a true reporter of the first order and here’s one for ya, Juan… people actually read what she writes and listen to what she says. I’m sure that is a foreign concept to you.

I could not be at Right Online 2012 in Vegas this year, but I listened to Michelle in the above video. She was incredible! And I am sure that Andrew Breitbart is looking down from heaven and smiling that impish smile of his. I know he would be very proud of Michelle and all the other bloggers who are carrying on and fighting the fight of our lives. Bloggers are exposing tyranny and corruption wherever they find it regardless of credit or fame. Because that is what real journalists do, that is what bloggers do.

I have been blogging for about 11 years now. Neal Boortz gave me my first break and I will miss him – he’s retiring this year and Herman Cain will take his place. Michelle Malkin was actually one of the first people who got me looking into Progressives and the Obama administration. Trevor Loudon was the other. Both are giants in the reporting world and both are mentors of mine. Most of the information out there today came from bloggers – you just don’t hear it on the “news.” The mainstream media is in the bag for the Obama administration and many, if not most, are Marxists. Yep, I went there.

So, ask yourself this, whom do you trust? Those that hobnob with Marxists and hate this country and our Constitution or the bloggers who uncover the truth, sometimes risking their lives to do so? We do this in our spare time with no pay and little gratitude and lots of hate. I’m just a blogger, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world, just for freedom.

Technorati Tags: alterantive media,Benjamin Franklin,bias liberal media,bloggers,blogosphere,courage,Herman Cain,History,journalists,jourNOlism,Juan Williams,loyalty,Marxists,Michelle Malkin,MSM,Neel Boortz,Trevor Loudon,Truth vs politics,watch the other hand

Is FDA Handing Out Gag Orders to Journalists Now?

March 15, 2011

The current FDA administration is blocking reporters from sharing agency pre-publication releases with experts to obtain outside comment. Help us protect medical freedom of speech!

Many prominent organizations and agencies like FDA release information with an embargo on it. In other words, news organizations will agree not to publish this information until a certain date. This gives the journalists time to research and write their articles, so that their more detailed investigation—often a deeper perspective on a complex story—can appear at the same time as the organization’s press conference.

The journalists customarily share the information with other experts in the field to get a more impartial perspective. These experts are are always apprised of the embargo, must agree to its terms, and fall under the same confidentiality agreement as the media organization.

A few weeks ago, as the FDA was about to unveil a new approval process for medical devices, the agency stated that news organizations must not “call around and get comment ahead of [time]. Needless to say, that would break the embargo.” This is completely contrary to established industry practice. As the blog Embargo Watch recently stated, “Without that, journalists become stenographers. If that’s what the FDA—a public agency—wants, they need to rethink. And if they insist that this is what they mean by a journalistic embargo, then I’d suggest reporters stop agreeing to them. There’s really no benefit to reporters or the public, only to the FDA.”

In response to the FDA’s statement, the nonprofit Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ)—the nation’s largest group of health reporters—sent a strongly worded letter to the FDA, objecting to the administration’s “highly unusual” new policy: “[This] restriction…rewrote a longstanding compact between reporters and various public and scientific organizations. It also hampered or delayed reporters’ ability to fully inform the public about what the FDA is doing with taxpayers’ money.”

The group continued, “Reporters who want to be competitive on a story will essentially have to agree to write only what the FDA wants to tell the world, without analysis or outside commentary.”

As an example of what the FDA is trying to accomplish with this outrageous new policy, take a look at this in-depth article published the day the aforementioned medical device approval announcement was made: a major policy change with potentially huge safety ramifications was covered in seventy-seven little words. Dull, absurdly brief, and decidedly uncontroversial—exactly what the FDA wanted.

Please send your message to the FDA, and ask the agency drop its embargo policy! We must make sure that the FDA allows expert review of its decisions and documents released on an embargoed basis, consistent with customary practices in the media industry. Please take action now!

TO SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO THE FDA

Click THIS LINK to go to the Action Alert page. Once there, fill out the form with your name and address, etc., and customize your letter. We have a suggested message for you, but please feel free to add your own comments to the letter.

We’d also love to hear your comments about this article—just add your thoughts below—but remember that the messages below are only seen by our ANH-USA readers and not Congress, the FDA, etc.

Source:  Alliance for Natural Health USA  - Cross-posted at True Health Is True Wealth

Related:

Watchdog Group Confuses Our Consumer Activists With “Well-Connected Lobbyists”!
A few weeks ago, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) released a report representing ANH-USA (and many other organizations’ efforts to protect natural health consumer rights) as “another disturbing example of pay-to-play in Washington.” Huh? Come again?