Free Republic

We have recently heard very much about the Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)-induced flood of released documents. They show that the anti-free market group Free Press worked quite closely with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) uber-Democrat Commissioner Michael Copps in advance of the December 21 FCC Internet power grab, executed so that the Commission could then impose the ridiculous Network Neutrality. This knowledge certainly helps explain why the technologically inept Free Press was cited fifty-three times in the FCC’s absurd write-up of their absurd December Internet folly. ... Free Press continually acts completely insane – at which they...

House Republicans continue to question how the Federal Communications Commission developed and passed rules designed to prevent anticompetitive behavior online. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., criticized what she called "collusion" between the FCC and the advocacy group Free Press on Friday. On Thursday the conservative group Judicial Watch released emails between Free Press employees and Democratic FCC Commissioner Michael Copps and his staff. "I am deeply disturbed by the revelations of collusion between the FCC and Free Press on the net-neutrality issue. The FCC has moved against the will of the people, the wisdom of Congress, and the order of the...

Documents made public yesterday by Judicial Watch describe extensive collusion by Federal Communications Commission officials with a left-wing advocacy group in a campaign to expand government regulation of the Internet. The documents, obtained by Judicial Watch in a December 2010 Freedom of Information Act request, were created after Democrat appointees solidified their 3-2 control of the agency in March 2009. Judicial Watch is a conservative nonprofit that specializes in using the FOIA and other avenues to expose corruption in government. The coordination between FCC officials and Free Press, the advocacy group, was on behalf of a proposal that the agency...

Complete title: FCC Colluded with Leftist Organization Free Press to Push Government Regulation of Internet, Documents Show Organization with Socialist Ties Driving “Net Neutrality” Agenda inside the Obama FCC? Washington, DCJudicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has uncovered documents from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that indicate officials at the FCC colluded with the leftist Free Press organization to publicly push a new plan to regulate the Internet under the FCC’s so-called “net neutrality” program. Judicial Watch obtained the documents pursuant to a December 27, 2010, Freedom of Information Act...

The mainstream media are willfully ignoring many questionable ties and friendships of Barack Obama. The list does not end with the radical racist preacher Jeremiah Wright and unrepentant domestic terrorist William Ayers. They have totally ignored Obama campaigning for the socialist revolutionary Raila Odinga in Kenya. They have also ignored his ties with radical Islamic extremist Khalid Al Masour. LA Times takes things to the next level. They are going beyond the level of ignoring to the level of willfully witholding informative evidence from the public. The associate of Barack Obama in question this time is Rashid Khalidi, a former...

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. But some in the 4th Estate are noticing. President Obama today met King Abdullah of Jordan in the Oval Office -- statements, no questions. Still, it was better than last week's meeting with the NATO leader:

The White House is engaging in a “troubling” pattern of heavy-handed dealings with the press, media critics said after yesterday’s news that the Boston Herald was frozen out of full access to a presidential visit to its home city. “It’s always troubling when you have the administration deciding what’s fair in the media or what is unfair because that clearly does create a situation where they are trying to select the coverage that they’re going to receive,” said Boston University College of Communication dean Tom Fiedler, who covered the White House as a reporter for the Miami Herald.

Figures. They just can’t help it. The leftists at Obama’s Secret Service can’t stand FOX News. They even tweeted about it.

Media: The Obama administration has picked another fight with a dissident newspaper, kicking the Boston Herald out of the press pool on an unprecedented claim that its coverage is unfair. Who died and elected them judge? 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...

The White House Press Office has refused to give the Boston Herald full access to President Obama’s Boston fund-raiser today, in e-mails objecting to the newspaper’s front page placement of a Mitt Romney op-ed, saying pool reporters are chosen based on whether they cover the news “fairly.” “I tend to consider the degree to which papers have demonstrated to covering the White House regularly and fairly in determining local pool reporters,” White House spokesman Matt Lehrich wrote in response to a Herald request for full access to the presidential visit. “My point about the op-ed was not that you ran...

It’s time for the MSM to put its drool buckets in permanent storage. In the past month, we’ve had: – The Pleasanton (CA) Weekly bullied by the White House press shop over a benign article that irked the administration because it made Michelle Obama look snooty. – The San Francisco Chronicle punished by the White House because a print pool reporter used a cell phone to record video of protesters at an Obama Bay Area fundraiser. And now, the Boston Herald has been spanked by the White House for…running a front-page op-ed by Mitt Romney: The White House Press Office...

Several veteran and prize-winning journalists who covered presidents from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush say that the current crop of White House correspondents are too timid and deferential and have played a role in killing the impact of presidential news conferences. "If you watch an Obama news conference, and watched a Bush news conference previous to that, where correspondents sit in their seats with their hands folded on their laps, [it's] as if they are in the room with a monarch and they have to wait to be recognized by the president," says Sid Davis, the former NBC...

The White House Press Office received another dose of bad press Wednesday as the Boston Herald lashed out at the office after being denied full access to a third consecutive visit by President Obama to Boston. The Herald, the smaller and right-leaning counterpart to the Boston Globe, lashed out at the press office, printing correspondence that indicated that the paper’s front-page placement of an op-ed by Mitt Romney was the reason for its exclusion. Matt Lehrich of the White House Press Office wrote to the Herald, “I tend to consider the degree to which papers have demonstrated to covering the...

The White House Press Office has refused to give the Boston Herald full access to President Obama’s Boston fund-raiser today, in e-mails objecting to the newspaper’s front page placement of a Mitt Romney op-ed, saying pool reporters are chosen based on whether they cover the news “fairly.” “I tend to consider the degree to which papers have demonstrated to covering the White House regularly and fairly in determining local pool reporters,” White House spokesman Matt Lehrich wrote in response to a Herald request for full access to the presidential visit.

What are you afraid of, Mr. President? I know it must be tough dragging yourself to these glitzy fund-raisers and mingling with rich people who shower you with money and affection. Who needs an unfriendly reporter shouting an unscripted question at you, or checking to see whether any of the guests are getting government contracts? 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...

Reuters White House photographer Jason Reed describes how the president made his speech to a single TV camera, then immediately after finishing, he pretended to speak for the still cameras. Reed writes: “As President Obama continued his nine-minute address in front of just one main network camera, the photographers were held outside the room by staff and asked to remain completely silent. Once Obama was off the air, we were escorted in front of that teleprompter and the President then re-enacted the walk-out and first 30 seconds of the statement for us.” That means the photograph that appeared in many...

Update: Chronicle responds after Obama Administration punishes reporter for using multimedia, then claims they didn't Update: In a pants-on-fire moment, the White House press office today denied anyone there had issued threats to remove Carla Marinucci and possibly other Hearst reporters from the press pool covering the President in the Bay Area. Chronicle editor Ward Bushee called the press office on its fib: Sadly, we expected the White House to respond in this manner based on our experiences yesterday. It is not a truthful response. It follows a day of off-the-record exchanges with key people in the White House communications...

Yesterday, the Chronicle reported that the White House had threatened to kick veteran reporter Carla Marinucci off the press pool because she posted a video of a protest at a San Francisco fundraiser last week. Today Politico.com ran a story on the controversy that included White House claims that the Chronicle report was "not true." Let me assure readers that the Chronicle does not run a story of this nature -- plus an editorial and a blog by Phil Bronstein lightly. It may well be the case that Carla remains on the pool -- I can't tell from this statement...

The White House that fancies itself as the most transparent in history is not without its control-freak instincts when it comes to media access. It seems that Team Obama was none too pleased that veteran Chronicle political reporter Carla Marinucci posted a 40-second video of a group of supporters-turned-protesters serenading the president a cappella - "We paid our dues ... where's our change" - at a recent fundraising breakfast at San Francisco's St. Regis Hotel. The protesters' objection: the treatment of Wikileaks source Pfc. Bradley Manning. The White House threatened that Marinucci would no longer be allowed to serve as...

The hip, transparent and social media-loving Obama administration is showing its analog roots. And maybe even some hypocrisy highlights. White House officials have banished one of the best political reporters in the country from the approved pool of journalists covering presidential visits to the Bay Area for using now-standard multimedia tools to gather the news. The Chronicle's Carla Marinucci - who, like many contemporary reporters, has a phone with video capabilities on her at all times - pulled out a small video camera last week and shot some protesters interrupting an Obama fundraiser at the St. Regis Hotel. Read more:...