Emails reveal press willingness to be manipulated by the Obama administration
Transparency! Freedom of Information emails obtained from the Obama administration in connection with the Justice Department’s effort to allow guns to leave the U.S. for Mexico illegally, dubbed Fast-and-Furious, show the administration’s aggressive effort to manipulate the press and squelch any reporters willing to report the scandal honestly.
Key quote: “Any way we can fix Fox?” The emails also show that White House officials trying to silence reporting by Sharyl Attkisson, then working for CBS.
I am less outraged by the jackbooted behavior of the Obama administraton here than the wimpy willingness of the so-called independent press to follow the administration’s orders. The very effort of White House officials to silence journalists was a story in itself, and any good press person should jump at the chance to reveal this behavior to everyone. Instead, top editors at the major networks apparently got down on their knees to lick the boots of these White House officials.
It amazes me that anyone believes anything aired by these mainstream media news organizations. They have become a joke.
More here, including this juicy quote: “There are very few things that are actually as dishonest, wicked and corrupt as conservatives think they are. But CBS News is one of them.”
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Transparency! Freedom of Information emails obtained from the Obama administration in connection with the Justice Department’s effort to allow guns to leave the U.S. for Mexico illegally, dubbed Fast-and-Furious, show the administration’s aggressive effort to manipulate the press and squelch any reporters willing to report the scandal honestly.
Key quote: “Any way we can fix Fox?” The emails also show that White House officials trying to silence reporting by Sharyl Attkisson, then working for CBS.
I am less outraged by the jackbooted behavior of the Obama administraton here than the wimpy willingness of the so-called independent press to follow the administration’s orders. The very effort of White House officials to silence journalists was a story in itself, and any good press person should jump at the chance to reveal this behavior to everyone. Instead, top editors at the major networks apparently got down on their knees to lick the boots of these White House officials.
It amazes me that anyone believes anything aired by these mainstream media news organizations. They have become a joke.
More here, including this juicy quote: “There are very few things that are actually as dishonest, wicked and corrupt as conservatives think they are. But CBS News is one of them.”
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
“The very effort of White House officials to silence journalists was a story in itself”
Yes, but it is important to remember that they do not treat reporters friendly to the administration any better. Remember the story of a reporter being locked in a broom closet? There are other stories of the administration treating reporters poorly and I am sure there are more.
“Key quote: “Any way we can fix Fox?” The emails also show that White House officials trying to silence reporting by Sharyl Attkisson, then working for CBS.”
And they tried to by taping the phones of a Fox reporter and going after his family as well.
The revelation here is that the administration considers that the news media (the “Fourth Estate”) is not only on their side but that it is supposed to be on their side. The news media (or press) largely follow what the administration says, as though orders were given. Although there is a difference between our modern press and a state-run press, there is little distinction.
From the article: “Were they not fed the docs?” This suggests that the administration considers that it is spoon feeding the press the information that it is supposed to report and is supposed to ignore other information (such as anything from an investigative reporter).
It is too bad that so many of us still trust what the mainstream media tells us. It is as though “the most trusted man in America,” Walter Cronkite, were still on the air. And even *he* didn’t always get it right. But like keeping a lover long past the time that the love is lost, we seem to be running on momentum — not bothering to change our habits because they served us well in the past, we are too comfortable in the current situation, and it is just plain too much trouble.
Some of the things that the Obama administration has done are the same things that America condemns President Nixon for doing or wishing that he could do. With Obama, he first wishes that he could do it (“The problem is that I’m the president of the United States, I’m not the emperor of the United States.”) then he does it (such as declaring that an in-session Senate is out of session so that he can make an appointment without interference). Obama has gone well beyond what Nixon wished that he could do. At least Nixon understood his American Civics classes.
The purpose for having a free press, as opposed to a state-run press, is for the press to be the final check against a tyrannical government. Without this check, the government can tell us any lie, and if we still trust the press, we believe the lie (“If you like your doctor …”).
This article shows what many had suspected, that most of the press is doing the government’s bidding, and those in the press that do not do as the government wishes are belittled, harassed, and spied upon in order to discredit what they say.
We are in the early years and the early stages of a tyranny, and left unchecked it only gets worse from here.
The tragedy of this whole “Fast and Furious” scandal is that Obama made some remark saying that a large percentage of the guns used in Mexican Mafia murders came from the US. When it was proved that this was not the case, the DOJ began the “Fast and Furious” program, apparently in order to make Obama’s words true.
The last that I heard, which was about a year ago, 300 Mexican citizens were murdered at crime scenes (including a teenager’s party) where “Fast and Furious” guns were found. About 1,000 guns have already found and another 1,000 are still unaccounted for, so it is likely that these guns will be, and have already been, involved in more murders.
300 dead people, all because a dictatorial, narcissistic president needed to prove that he is right. What a waste.
I was born ten days after World War II started in Europe. I grew up as America became the World’s greatest power both on Earth and in Space.
I never thought I’d be alive to witness it becoming a shell of its prior greatness and under the domination of a lawless President. A decline aided and celebrate and cheered on by the Mainstream Media.
Where is a new Churchill ready to rally the country? All is silence.
Where is President Bush 43?
He took an oath when he became President to “will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Did that Oath become invalid when he left office? Does the so called tradition of past Presidents not judging or speaking against the current President invalidate that oath?
Unless we soon recover our moral strength, courage and willingness to fight tyranny we are lost.
“If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.” — Somerset Maugham
ON THE MEDIA AND AGENDA
This story is about Sharyl Attkisson, a very good reporter / journalist, top of the line. An actual journalist.
https://youtu.be/AfRm_knR-es 6 min.
She was spied on by the government because she reported the truth as uncovered by her, right down the middle. Just like what is going to be revealed related to the actions of the former FBI, DOJ and the CIA leadership. Your privacy and your freedom of speech are but minor annoying details to them and are regularly disregarded.
In the interview she tells how her network, CBS, would not put anything on the air that did not fit their preconceived notion about what should be reported that supported THEIR (And the governments / the Obama administrations) agenda.
Politics, the dirtiest, filthiest, ultimately the most deadly game that human beings play.
And Obama and those that surrounded him were one of the worst and dirtiest ever in history, and that will be further demonstrated as Attorney General Barr seeks the truth in the “Russian collusion” investigation about the investigation. Corruption and abuse of power of the first order within the agencies and the bureaucracy that is the government.
Abuse of power is the nature of man related to power and governance, bet on it. And there exists just one thing specifically designed to allow that abuse to be exposed and rectified. The Constitution, unique and brilliant!