Ron Fournier teaches Journalism 101 to White House press corps.

Five Ways to Shift Leverage From the Government to the Press and Public 


"Don't worry about rough coverage hurting relationships and access (actually, it helps). You want to be a fair reporter, somebody who takes the beat seriously and respects (even likes) the people you cover. You also want to be a tough reporter, somebody who government officials fret about. You can be both fair and tough.

"Something I learned covering the Clinton and Bush White Houses: A new reporter spends months, if not years, calling government officials and begging them for information. "What are you working on?" Once that reporter starts unearthing confidential information and writing incisive analyses that knocks the government off script, the leverage shifts: Government officials call the reporter proactively to ask, "What are you working on?" That's when the reporter realizes she owns the beat." ...  Full article.

Former AP Bureau Chief Ron Fournier Says Blow Off White House Briefings, They're 'A Waste of Time'
" So Fournier advised in National Journal that it’s time to be “both fair and tough,” to shift the leverage of the conversation from the government to the people, and even consider blowing off the White House briefing as “a waste of time.”

 

"Don't go to White House briefings. They're a waste of time. The press secretary rarely makes news and, when he does, the information is a stale commodity; everybody gets it. While your competitors rot away in the briefing room, slip outside the gates and grab a meal or cup of coffee with a potential source, ideally one who doesn't work in the White House. Blowing off briefings is a competitive advantage.

Cover the White House from the "outside in." That's the phrase used by Caren Bohan of Reuters to describe her mastery of agencies and legislative offices disconnected from the White House vault. When Politico asked for tips on how to cover the White House, Jonathan Karl of ABC News said, "By going outside the White House – to Congress, the Pentagon, the State Department or the political world."

  More here.

Issa: WH Withholding Benghazi Docs ‘Disturbing and Perhaps Criminal’ (Video)

Nice Deb  ... “In pushing the false narrative that a YouTube video was responsible for the deaths of four brave Americans, it is disturbing and perhaps criminal that these documents — that documents like these — were hidden by the Obama administration from Congress and the public alike, particularly after Secretary Kerry pledged cooperation and the president himself told the American people in November of 2012 that, quote, ‘every bit of information we have on Benghazi has been provided,’” Issa said." ...

"No wonder Obama is lawyering up.

"Issa later questioned General Lovell.:

 

Jay Carney gets testy over questions about new Benghazi emails

Legal Insurrection   "As controversy over newly released documents pertaining to the 2012 Benghazi attack continues, there was a tense exchange between White House press spokesman Jay Carney and FOX News reporter Ed Henry in Thursday’s press briefing." 

 

... "On Thursday, Ed Henry asked Carney, “If the email was not about Benghazi, as you said yesterday and you say again today, why did the White House turn it over to a conservative group seeking information about Benghazi?”
"That question prompted the tense back and forth exchange between Henry and Carney below. Additional video footage available at Mediaite."

Townhall has more: Besieged Carney Claims Newly-Released WH Emails...Weren't About Benghazi
"Beyond the conservative blogosphere and Fox News, the mainstream media's reaction to yesterday's release of crucial new Benghazi emails was...muted, to say the least. That all changed at this afternoon's White House press briefing, at which ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl pummeled Jay Carney with questions about the White House's political response to the deadly terrorist attacks. Watch the whole thing, then scroll down for extensive analysis:" ...

Weasel Zippers isn't afraid to "have a conversation about race"

MSNBC Montage: Racism, Racism, Racism, White Supremacy, Racism, Racism, Racism, White Supremacy, Racism… 

 

 

UNREAL: Wisconsin Dem Gov. Candidate To Hand Out KKK Hoods To Republicans…

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Democratic candidate for governor Brett Hulsey plans to hand out white Ku Klux Klan hoods to Wisconsin Republicans to highlight what he says are their racist policies.
 

More at Legal Insurrection  "This will not surprise you — Hulsey was front and center in the take over of the Wisconsin Capitol in 2011:" ...
 

From Politifact:   ... "So there is some historic link between Democrats and the KKK. But Martinez said it is misleading to say that the hate group was started by the Democratic Party because it was more of a grassroots creation." ...

MSNBC Panelist: Hey, How Come We Never Talk About Racism?…

"Which leads me to believe this person has never watched MSNBC because that is all they ever talk about."

Ed Schultz: Republicans Not Raising The Minimum Wage Is “Every Bit As Racist” As Sterling…

“ 'I think not raising the minimum wage is a racist policy,” he said. “Standing up, making the case that people of color in this country do not deserve a living wage is a racist policy. There’s a lot of different ways to prove racism in America. Not providing a livable wage for Americans hurts African-Americans.' ”

MSNBC proves they are not racist by making Al Sharpton an anchor

Founder of the National Action Network

Helped incite anti-Jewish riots in Crown Heights, New York in 1991

Convicted of libel for his role in the racially charged Tawana Brawley hoax

Incited black anti-Semites against a Jewish business establishment in Harlem in 1995

Democratic Party presidential candidate, 2004

 

... "Years later, Norman Rosenbaum, brother of the murdered Yankel Rosenbaum, reflected on the events of August 1991: "Based on everything we have seen and read, Sharpton never called upon the rioters to stop their anti-Semitism-inspired violence. He never called on the rioters to go home." Rosenbaum elaborated:

"The riots were the product of anti-Semites taking advantage of the tragic death of a child to justify inflicting their violence on innocent people -- the Jewish community of Crown Heights -- and murdering Yankel Rosenbaum, a Jew from Australia, amid the cries of 'Kill the Jew!'"

What has MSNBC ever said about Sharpton's racism? 

NRO commentaries: Obama’s ‘Blame the Video’ Fraud Started in Cairo, Not Benghazi

"The e-mail revelations and the Obama administration’s lies"

Andrew C. McCarthy "Here is the main point: The rioting at the American embassy in Cairo was not about the anti-Muslim video. As argued here repeatedly ...the Obama administration’s “Blame the Video” story was a fraudulent explanation for the September 11, 2012, rioting in Cairo every bit as much as it was a fraudulent explanation for the massacre in Benghazi several hours later.

"We’ll come back to that because, once you grasp this well-hidden fact, the Obama administration’s derelictions of duty in connection with Benghazi become much easier to see. But let’s begin with Jay Carney’s performance in Wednesday’s exchange with the White House press corps, a new low in insulting the intelligence of the American people.
... Full article..

"That was the beginning of the fraud’s Benghazi phase — the phase Susan Rice was prepped to peddle on nationwide television. But it wasn’t the beginning of the fraud.

"Secretary Clinton’s minions at the State Department had started spinning the video fraud hours earlier, in Egypt. The sooner Americans grasp that, the sooner they will comprehend the breathtaking depth of the president’s Benghazi cover-up."

Victor Davis Hanson: The Truth Drips Out    "For over a year and a half the White House successfully withheld communications between public servants, apparently in hopes that the death of four Americans in Benghazi would not become an issue in the 2012 election (at the eleventh hour CNN’s Candy Crowley did her best to ensure that goal by unethically becoming both moderator and advocate of Barack Obama in the second debate)."

On the other hand...What the New Benghazi E-mails Show, and What They Don’t     "Charles Krauthammer argued on Special Report tonight that the new Benghazi e-mails from the White House are a “smoking document,” but that the media will plead that the scandal is too complicated, so the issue is dead. Alas, the scandal is complicated enough that Krauthammer is either mistaken about the facts of what he calls “a classic cover-up of a cover-up,” or he’s eliding the details for his audience." ...

Drip, drip, drip on Benghazi.

Via Lucianne; always a good source.

USA Today  "WASHINGTON — U.S. military personnel knew early on that the Benghazi attack was a "hostile action" and not a protest gone awry, according to a retired general who served at U.S. Africa Command's headquarters in Germany during the attack.
...
"Lovell's testimony contradicts the story that the Obama administration gave in the early days following the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. Consulate that left four Americans dead, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.

"Back then the administration insisted that the best intelligence it had from CIA and other officials indicated that the attack was a protest against an anti-Islam video that turned violent." ...

New Benghazi Witness on Sending Help: ‘We Should Have Tried’    “ 'There are accounts of time, space and capability discussions of the question, could we have gotten there in time to make a difference,” Lovell will testify. “Well, the discussion is not in the ‘could or could not’ in relation to time, space and capability. The point is we should have tried.' ”

 

Liberal, pro-Democrat Maureen Dowd is fed up with President Obama's international dithering

With Obama being mentored by the likes of Rev. Wright and Bill Ayres (pictured below), we now know how America would turn out if we had actually elected a Black Panther or a 60s radical as president.

Chicago Mag

Is Barry Whiffing?   ... "As Leon Wieseltier wrote in the latest New Republic, oppressed and threatened swaths of the world are jittery and despairing “because the United States seems no longer reliable in emergencies, which it prefers to meet with meals ready to eat.”’

"The Times’s Mark Landler, who traveled with the president on his Asia trip, reported that Obama will try to regain the offensive, including a graduation address at West Point putting his foreign policy in context.

 

"Mr. President, don’t you know that we’re speeched out? It’s not what we need right now." ...  More...

Putin Is Launching a New Version of the Evil Empire. What the U.S. Needs to Do Now.

No Speech Can Fix This   ... "In the midst of these world crises—and a U.S. military readiness crisis—we have a president who questions “the efficacy and even legitimacy of American power,” lamented Heritage Distinguished Fellow Jim Talent and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.).

"It’s been 100 years since the beginning of World War I. Where does America stand when it comes to protecting its citizens and allies? This question is on many minds as the world watches Putin’s ambitions unfold. Can we even maintain the level of safety we have enjoyed in recent years as our leaders continue to gut the military?" ...

 

From the UK Guardian

 

UK readers comment on the cartoon:        

                   

"I think he means that the only action the U.S. is capable of taking these days in regards to international affairs is playacting."

 

"The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.
is mentioned by WS in Henry V (IV.4.64):
, "I did never know so full a voice issue from so empty a heart: but the saying is true, the empty vessel makes the greatest sound". "

 

"Like all conflicts the Americans arrived late...at least in public anyway!"

Foreign Policy: From Bad to None; Our enemies are gloating, and our allies are grimly deciding where to go from here.

Victor Davis Hanson   " Barack Obama had a foreign policy for about five years, and now he has none.

"The first-term foreign policy’s assumptions went something like this. Obama was to assure the world that he was not George W. Bush. Whatever the latter was for, Obama was mostly against. ...

"If Bush wanted garrison troops left in Iraq to secure the victory of the surge, Obama would pull them out. If Bush had opened Guantanamo, used drones, relied on renditions, reestablished military tribunals, and approved preventive detention, Obama would profess to dismantle that war on terror — even to the point where the Bush-era use of the word “terrorism” and any associations between it and radical Islam would disappear.

"If Bush had contemplated establishing an anti-missile system in concert with the Poles and Czechs, then it must have been unwise and unnecessary. If Bush had unabashedly supported Israel and become estranged from Turkey, Obama would predictably reverse both courses..."  More...

  

Doctors And AMA Split Over Contentious Issue Of ObamaCare

It seems that just as the teacher's unions do not seem to have the education and welfare of our children at heart, neither does it appear that the AMA looks out for our doctors. Never assume because the AMA endorses a program that it helps patients or doctors.
Our own family physician has been burdened with much more paperwork, even having to hire an extra person just to put government-required patient information into a computer.
She has told us that after all patients have been seen for the day, she continues to do paperwork at home until bedtime. She admitted that her family life has suffered.  I can attest to that, having just recently received an email from her explaining results of some tests she had ordered for me.
The email came to me at 11:30 pm.  The Tunnel Dweller.

Forbes  "For more than 160 years, the American Medical Association has served as the self-appointed chief lobbying group for doctors. But the AMA’s lofty status has been under threat over the last several years — and is under attack today. In fact, the AMA now only counts about 17% of doctors as members.
" According to a new survey, the majority of doctors do not believe that the AMA represents their views and interests. Much of that dissatisfaction stems from the organization’s support for President Obama’s contentious health care reform package.
"That shouldn’t be surprising. The AMA declares that its core mission is to “help doctors help patients.” But ObamaCare undermines that pursuit by making life harder for physicians and driving down the quality of care available to patients."  More here.   Emphasis mine, TD
Sally C. Pipes is President, CEO, and Taube Fellow in Health Care Studies at the Pacific Research Institute. Her latest book is The Truth About Obamacare.

The Radical Left’s High-Stakes Gamble on Intolerance

American Center for Law and Justice  "Not for the first time, the radical Left is moving rapidly away from any respect for free speech and pluralism and is decisively throwing itself into creating a self-righteous culture of intolerance and intimidation. It’s playing a dangerous game, one that is already alienating its own allies.

"I don’t often type this, but I agree with every word Andrew Sullivan says here about Mozilla ridding itself of its independent-thinking CEO:" ...

Bullies: How the Left's Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans     ... "The left has created a climate of fear wherein ordinary Americans must abandon their principles, back abhorrent causes, and remain silent. They believe America is a force for evil, that our military is composed of war criminals, and that patriotism is the deepest form of treason. They incite riots and threaten violence by playing the race card, then claim they’re advocates for tolerance. Disagree with Obama? You must be a racist. They send out union thugs and Occupy Wall Street anarchists to destroy businesses and redistribute the wealth of earners and job creators. No target is off limits as liberal feminists declare war against stay-at-home moms, and gay activists out their enemies, destroy careers, and desecrate personal privacy."

Here is where leftist intolerance can lead you: Churchill Quotation Gets Liberty GB Leader Paul Weston Arrested

"At around 2pm Mr Weston was standing on the steps of Winchester Guildhall, addressing the passers-by in the street with a megaphone. He quoted the following excerpt about Islam from the book The River War by Winston Churchill:"

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith."

"Reportedly a woman came out of the Guildhall and asked Mr Weston if he had the authorisation to make this speech. When he answered that he didn’t, she told him “It’s disgusting!” and then called the police."...  Via Brenner Brief

Charles Krauthammer on Benghazi emails

Politico

 

"Charles Krauthammer is calling newly released emails “a smoking document” that the conservative columnist says shows the White House was involved in a coverup of the Benghazi attacks.

"Appearing on Fox News on Tuesday evening, Krauthammer said the email shows that the Obama administration fabricated its contention that the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, were a reaction to a YouTube video because the revelation of a terrorist attack would have been politically costly to the president’s reelection campaign."
...
"The documents were first obtained by Judicial Watch. According to Judicial Watch, other Obama administration officials who received the email include David Plouffe and Dan Pfeiffer."...  More...

Benghazi Documents Point to White House on Misleading Talking Points

All of which makes these videos seem reprehensible:

 

Life in Obamaworld; at home, on the road, and around the world

 

Just 8% Say Obamacare Lowered Their Health Costs   ... " Worse for Democrats, 47% of Americans say their health insurance costs have gone up because of the president's signature legislative achievement. "

 

"Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced plans for the city to build the Barack Obama College Preparatory High School that opens in three years. The school is already plagued with problems. People are trying to enroll their kids in the school, but the website's not working."  Argus Hamilton

CNN Money: U.S. economy slows to stall-speed    "Slumps in exports, housing and business investment, especially on equipment, were the main drivers behind the weak performance. All those things can be slowed by snow, hail and other winter storms as shipments are delayed or construction is put on hold."
 

Health Care Spending Soars 9.9% On ObamaCare In Q1    "This isn't what President Obama and other Affordable Care Act supporters have said would happen. They've argued that the law would rein in medical costs, even while providing massive subsidies to expand coverage to millions of people. The White House had touted recent data showing slowing health care costs, though that trend preceded ObamaCare and was global. The GDP report offers the clearest evidence yet that, at least in the short term, ObamaCare is having a big impact on spending."  More

Actor Tim Allen Question How Taxing High Income People Helps Middle Class



Michelle Obama 2-Day Hotel Stay in China Costs $222K  "First lady's group used 144 rooms at Shangri-La Hotel."

Taxpayers Shell Out $2.9 Million For Just Two of Obama’s Golf Outings In 2014…   "Total travel costs for all of the Obamas and Bidens vacations now more than $40 million."

Kerry Calls Egypt’s Decision To Execute Islamists Who Went On Christian-Killing Rampage “Disturbing”…