Posted on 09/11/2018 7:36:47 PM PDT by Rummyfan
Its been over a year and a half since Obama left office, but it still bothers me hearing him speak. Between his trying to take credit for the Trump economy and his claim that he, unlike Trump, didnt threaten the freedom of the press, it's hard not to get angry when he speaks because virtually everything he says is a lie. His trying to take credit for Trump's economy was pathetic, but his claim that he was not an enemy of the free press deserves to be called out.
It shouldnt be Democratic or Republican to say that we dont threaten the freedom of the press because they say things or publish stories we dont like, Obama said during his speech at the University of Illinois. I complained plenty about Fox News, but you never heard me threaten to shut them down, or call them enemies of the people. Obama certainly had his issues with Fox News. Newsweek actually described the conflict between them as a war.
But, Obamas war with the media wasnt limited to Fox News. Obamas treatment of the media as a whole was so bad that New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan criticized the Obama administration in 2013 for its unprecedented secrecy and unprecedented attacks on a free press. David E. Sanger, the chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times, said of the Obama administration in 2013, This is the most closed, control-freak administration Ive ever covered. According to a report on press freedoms by the highly respected Committee to Protect Journalists, In the Obama administration's Washington, government officials are increasingly afraid to talk to the press.
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
Unfortunately he will not just silently go away, as all other ex-presidents do (except Clinton). Unless he is tried, convicted, and jailed.
He’s a Disgrace to the Presidency and is openly hostile to the Majority of US!
OBAMA: .......we dont threaten the freedom of the press because they say things or publish stories we dont like.
I complained plenty about Fox News, but you never heard me call them enemies of the people. rally Friday at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
No, he didnt ....he just unleashed the full force of the DOJ, in the person of AG Eric Holder to pounce on Fox reporter James Rosen AND to intimidate Rosen’s family.
Holder and Obama issued a court order for Fox News reporter James Rosen’s emails labeling Rosen a criminal “co-conspirator.”
SOURCE: theguardian.com Circa 2013
The Justice Department did more than seize a Fox News reporters emails while suggesting he was a criminal co-conspirator in a leak case it did so under one of the most serious wartime laws in America, the Espionage Act. It is now well known that the Obama justice department has prosecuted more government leakers under the 1917 Espionage Act than all prior administrations combined - in fact, double the number of all such prior prosecutions. But as last weeks controversy over the Obama DOJs pursuit of the phone records of AP reporters illustrated, this obsessive fixation in defense of secrecy also targets, and severely damages, journalists specifically and the news-gathering process in general.
New revelations emerged yesterday in the Washington Post that are perhaps the most extreme yet when it comes to the DOJs attacks on press freedoms. It involves the prosecution of State Department adviser Stephen Kim, a naturalized citizen from South Korea who was indicted in 2009 for allegedly telling Fox News chief Washington correspondent, James Rosen, that US intelligence believed North Korea would respond to additional UN sanctions with more nuclear tests - something Rosen then reported. Kim did not obtain unauthorized access to classified information, nor steal documents, nor sell secrets, nor pass them to an enemy of the US. Instead, the DOJ alleges that he merely communicated this innocuous information to a journalist - something done every day in Washington - and, for that, this arms expert and long-time government employee faces more than a decade in prison for espionage.
The focus of the Posts report yesterday is that the DOJs surveillance of Rosen, the reporter, extended far beyond even what they did to AP reporters. The FBI tracked Rosens movements in and out of the State Department, traced the timing of his calls, and - most amazingly - obtained a search warrant to read two days worth of his emails, as well as all of his emails with Kim. In this case, said the Post, investigators did more than obtain telephone records of a working journalist suspected of receiving the secret material. It added that court documents in the Kim case reveal how deeply investigators explored the private communications of a working journalist.
But what makes this revelation particularly disturbing is that Obama’s DOJ, in order to get this search warrant, insisted that Fox’s Rosen - a journalist - committed serious crimes. The DOJ specifically argued that by encouraging his source to disclose classified information - something investigative journalists do every day - Rosen himself broke the law. Describing an affidavit from FBI agent Reginald Reyes filed by the DOJ, the Post reports [emphasis added]:
Reyes wrote that there was evidence Rosen had broken the law, at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator. That fact distinguishes his case from the probe of the AP, in which the news organization is not the likely target. Using italics for emphasis, Reyes explained how Rosen allegedly used a covert communications plan and quoted from an e-mail exchange between Rosen and Kim that seems to describe a secret system for passing along information. . . .
However, it remains an open question whether its ever illegal, given the First Amendments protection of press freedom, for a reporter to solicit information.
No reporter, including Rosen, has been prosecuted for doing so. Under US law, it is not illegal to publish classified information. That fact, along with the First Amendments guarantee of press freedoms, is what has prevented the US government from ever prosecuting journalists for reporting on what the US government does in secret. This newfound theory of the Obama DOJ - that a journalist can be guilty of crimes for soliciting the disclosure of classified information - is a means for circumventing those safeguards and criminalizing the act of investigative journalism itself.
These latest revelations show that this is not just a theory but one put into practice, as the Obama DOJ submitted court documents accusing a journalist of committing crimes by doing this.SNIP
The Obama/Holder paranoia about Fox News reached epic dimensions........they even went after Rosen’s parents.
washingtontimes.com
Obama Justice Department seized phone records for reporter James Rosens parents
By David Sherfinski - The Washington Times - Wed, May 22, 2013
Fox News anchor Bret Baier says that in addition to seizing the phone records of Fox reporter James Rosen, the Department of Justice seized the records of his parents as well in another twist to the still-unraveling saga.
We said the different numbers; we have the documents now, the seized records relate to James parents home in Staten Island, he said on Special Report with Bret Baier.
On Monday, news reports said the Justice Department seized phone records and emails sent to a private account of Fox News chief Washington correspondent, Mr. Rosen, in an investigation into a 2009 story about U.N. sanctions and North Koreas nuclear program.
In court filings, the department even said Mr. Rosen may have aided and abetted in a crime by trying to pry the information, which was classified, from his source.
The government is prosecuting a State Department adviser Stephen Kim, a North Korea analyst, for revealing secrets to the news organization. He is awaiting trial. No charges have been filed against Mr. Rosen.snip
but it still bothers me hearing him speak.
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It should.
He was never eligible to be President.
Obamas war with the media wasnt limited to Fox News. Obamas treatment of the media as a whole was so bad that New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan criticized the Obama administration in 2013 for its unprecedented secrecy and unprecedented attacks on a free press. David E. Sanger, the chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times, said of the Obama administration in 2013, This is the most closed, control-freak administration Ive ever covered. According to a report on press freedoms by the highly respected Committee to Protect Journalists, In the Obama administration's Washington, government officials are increasingly afraid to talk to the press.
So, one report by a committee almost no one has ever heard of, and the mild complaints of a couple of urinalists? That means 99+ percent of the coverage was favorable to Obama, and that everyone in that 99% group was happy with that. Thanks Rummyfan.
Maybe Bob Woodward can run around to all the people who worked for Obama and only print up the stuff they say about Obama that’s bad... I would buy that book Bob Woodward... why don’t you write it?
Give us your damn lying excuse Bob Woodward... why don’t you do a hit job on some democrats for a change...
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