Schiff directed Vindman not to answer certain questions from Republicans

[SweetSue92]

This democratic effort to conduct a Coup de Etat via a fallacious use of impeachment is getting more ridiculous by the day.

When it finally falls apart and that will not take much longer....Schiff must be indicted and charged with treason....to make sure this sort of harassment of a President never happens again.

At no time in our history has any political party put our nation in such danger simply because of party politics.

In fact this whole travesty rises far above party politics....to the level of Treason...that is very clear.

Jordan: Schiff Directed Vindman Not to Answer Republican's Questions


Battleground States Oppose Impeachment and Removal

you remember when the Republicans pull the same crap next time they are in the minority. I want to hear the same condemnation from you.

The democrats are the only ones that have ever attempted a Coup D Etat in the entire history of America.

What the democrats will now be faced with after their attempt at a coup fails is the arrest and indictment for treason of the leaders of this failed coup.

Remember you heard it here first.

Really? Google “Clinton impeachment” and educate yourself

OH my look how badly they're losing now

hahahahhaaa

 

[Billy_Kinetta]

This democratic effort to conduct a Coup de Etat via a fallacious use of impeachment is getting more ridiculous by the day.

When it finally falls apart and that will not take much longer....Schiff must be indicted and charged with treason....to make sure this sort of harassment of a President never happens again.

At no time in our history has any political party put our nation in such danger simply because of party politics.

In fact this whole travesty rises far above party politics....to the level of Treason...that is very clear.

Jordan: Schiff Directed Vindman Not to Answer Republican's Questions


Battleground States Oppose Impeachment and Removal

you remember when the Republicans pull the same crap next time they are in the minority. I want to hear the same condemnation from you.

The democrats are the only ones that have ever attempted a Coup D Etat in the entire history of America.

What the democrats will now be faced with after their attempt at a coup fails is the arrest and indictment for treason of the leaders of this failed coup.

Remember you heard it here first.

Really? Google “Clinton impeachment” and educate yourself

Lying under oath. Educate YOURself.

 

[skookerasbil]

This democratic effort to conduct a Coup de Etat via a fallacious use of impeachment is getting more ridiculous by the day.

When it finally falls apart and that will not take much longer....Schiff must be indicted and charged with treason....to make sure this sort of harassment of a President never happens again.

At no time in our history has any political party put our nation in such danger simply because of party politics.

In fact this whole travesty rises far above party politics....to the level of Treason...that is very clear.

Jordan: Schiff Directed Vindman Not to Answer Republican's Questions


Battleground States Oppose Impeachment and Removal

Joni Ernst: Democrats 'Wrapped Up' in Impeachment 'Fervor' | Breitbart

Pollak: 5 Problems with the Democrats' Impeachment Inquiry Resolution | Breitbart

House Dem Jeff Van Drew Signals He's Not Voting for Pelosi's Impeachment Bill

Great find man........but listen. Everybody on the right like me should want impeachment. The more division the better. It moves the needle closer to a trigger and we all know what that is. The sooner the better before any more damage is done to our country. In the end, there is no way of dealing with these people in a civil manner. We need more people "woke". Go.......go.....go on impeachment. Lets see how lefty activists like their rallies in 2020. Lets see how much they really want skin in the game! Lets see how many have balls when YouTube starts going viral with snowflakes getting pwnd in the streets.......with little faggy batons sticking clear out of their assholes to be seen by millions. Go.......go!!

 

[Kilroy2]

One question that Schiff barred a witness from answering reportedly came from Ohio Republican Congressman Jim Jordan, who asked Vindman to disclose the individuals with whom he shared information about the July 25 phone call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky.

Obvious attempt to out the whistleblower for retaliation, the identify of the whistleblower has nothing to do with the content of the accusations which are true

If repubs have a problem them prove that the accusations are false

you remember when the Republicans pull the same crap next time they are in the minority. I want to hear the same condemnation from you.

The democrats are the only ones that have ever attempted a Coup D Etat in the entire history of America.

What the democrats will now be faced with after their attempt at a coup fails is the arrest and indictment for treason of the leaders of this failed coup.

Remember you heard it here first.

Really? Google “Clinton impeachment” and educate yourself

Clinton was impeached and for a specific reason......he lied to a grand jury.....that is a crime and thus he was impeached.

President Trump has committed no crimes and thus there is no legitimate reason to attempt to impeach him.

Obstruction of justice is a crime

I thought we were innocent till proven guilty. Not guilty till we can prove our innocence

I would agree but Trump doesn't seem to have that mentality with all the accusation he makes

How many times have we heard crooked Hillary should be in jail

Obama not a citizen and should never have been president

Adam Schiff, Comey, McCabe, and others of committing treason

one of his favorite accusations

he has accused Mueller of deleting email and that it was committing a crime

Trump is still under investigation that is all

President Trump has committed no crimes and thus there is no legitimate reason to attempt to impeach him.[/QUOTE]


Obstruction of justice is a crime[/QUOTE]

 

[Slade3200]

This democratic effort to conduct a Coup de Etat via a fallacious use of impeachment is getting more ridiculous by the day.

When it finally falls apart and that will not take much longer....Schiff must be indicted and charged with treason....to make sure this sort of harassment of a President never happens again.

At no time in our history has any political party put our nation in such danger simply because of party politics.

In fact this whole travesty rises far above party politics....to the level of Treason...that is very clear.

Jordan: Schiff Directed Vindman Not to Answer Republican's Questions


Battleground States Oppose Impeachment and Removal

you remember when the Republicans pull the same crap next time they are in the minority. I want to hear the same condemnation from you.

We were in the minority when Obama first took office, Slade...remind me again when it was the GOP attempted to impeach Barack Obama back then? I must have missed that... (eye roll)

Efforts to impeach Barack Obama - Wikipedia

Come on Slade...you can do better than that nonsense! When did the House even come close to impeaching Barry? You post a bunch of people talking smack about Obama and count that as a GOP attempt to impeach?

I quote from Wiki... "No list of articles of impeachment was ever drawn up and proposed to the Judiciary Committee." Care to try again?

i really don’t see the point in comparing the two. Obama didn’t do the things that Trump has done. He didn’t provoke and attack the media and his opposition the way Trump has done. He didn’t burn bridges, break promises and overtly leverage aid to a foreign country in order to open an investigation into his political opponent.

I’m not a supporter of impeachment so I do agree with you that it is overkill but I also see the apples and oranges you are trying to compare and it’s not a fair argument

 

[Slade3200]

you remember when the Republicans pull the same crap next time they are in the minority. I want to hear the same condemnation from you.

The democrats are the only ones that have ever attempted a Coup D Etat in the entire history of America.

What the democrats will now be faced with after their attempt at a coup fails is the arrest and indictment for treason of the leaders of this failed coup.

Remember you heard it here first.

Really? Google “Clinton impeachment” and educate yourself

Clinton was impeached and for a specific reason......he lied to a grand jury.....that is a crime and thus he was impeached.

President Trump has committed no crimes and thus there is no legitimate reason to attempt to impeach him.

the dems haven’t presented their case yet so how do you know such things?

Because if they had anything, anything at all, they would be screaming to the heavens above what they had.

That's why.

Well then what are you bitching about? If they don’t have anything then they won’t pass an impeachment vote or senate trial and it will work to the benefit of Trump.

 

[bodecea]

Orange cultists are panicking! Their god is being threatened!

 

[Slade3200]

President Trump has committed no crimes and thus there is no legitimate reason to attempt to impeach him.

the dems haven’t presented their case yet so how do you know such things?

Really, Slade? Not presented their case?

• The effort to impeach Trump began 1,013 days ago, the day he took office. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ampaign-to-impeach-president-trump-has-begun/
• In 2017, Democrats claimed they had such overwhelming proof that Trump had stolen the election that he would be out of office by year's end.
• In 2018, Democrats vowed Trump was a puppet President put in by the Kremlin, that he was crazy, incompetent and dangerous.
  
• In 2019, Schiff swore up and down they would prove Trump colluded and conspired and obstructed. That too was dropped after 35 million dollars spent.
• Now hardly 6 months later, they have uncovered an all-new reason so overwhelming, that Trump said something wrong on a phone call with 30 people listening in on it as to compel an impeachment investigation, soon to go public with the damning proof!

JUST WHEN ARE THEY GOING TO PRESENT THEIR CASE? I mean, if they still need time to gather more evidence, HOW DO THEY EVEN KNOW THEY HAVE A CASE or that any crime has been committed?

View attachment 287003

And please don't say "any day now." Like most people, I like to see a good train wreck.

Resolution vote on Thursday outlining the procedure followed by public hearings, house impeachment vote and then a senate trial. Try and keep up.

Why Democrats Are Moving Quickly With Impeachment

 

[Slade3200]

This democratic effort to conduct a Coup de Etat via a fallacious use of impeachment is getting more ridiculous by the day.

When it finally falls apart and that will not take much longer....Schiff must be indicted and charged with treason....to make sure this sort of harassment of a President never happens again.

At no time in our history has any political party put our nation in such danger simply because of party politics.

In fact this whole travesty rises far above party politics....to the level of Treason...that is very clear.

Jordan: Schiff Directed Vindman Not to Answer Republican's Questions


Battleground States Oppose Impeachment and Removal

you remember when the Republicans pull the same crap next time they are in the minority. I want to hear the same condemnation from you.

The democrats are the only ones that have ever attempted a Coup D Etat in the entire history of America.

What the democrats will now be faced with after their attempt at a coup fails is the arrest and indictment for treason of the leaders of this failed coup.

Remember you heard it here first.

Really? Google “Clinton impeachment” and educate yourself

Lying under oath. Educate YOURself.

how did he end up lying under oath?

 

[Nostra]

This democratic effort to conduct a Coup de Etat via a fallacious use of impeachment is getting more ridiculous by the day.

When it finally falls apart and that will not take much longer....Schiff must be indicted and charged with treason....to make sure this sort of harassment of a President never happens again.

At no time in our history has any political party put our nation in such danger simply because of party politics.

In fact this whole travesty rises far above party politics....to the level of Treason...that is very clear.

Jordan: Schiff Directed Vindman Not to Answer Republican's Questions


Battleground States Oppose Impeachment and Removal

you remember when the Republicans pull the same crap next time they are in the minority. I want to hear the same condemnation from you.

We were in the minority when Obama first took office, Slade...remind me again when it was the GOP attempted to impeach Barack Obama back then? I must have missed that... (eye roll)

Efforts to impeach Barack Obama - Wikipedia

Come on Slade...you can do better than that nonsense! When did the House even come close to impeaching Barry? You post a bunch of people talking smack about Obama and count that as a GOP attempt to impeach?

I quote from Wiki... "No list of articles of impeachment was ever drawn up and proposed to the Judiciary Committee." Care to try again?

i really don’t see the point in comparing the two. Obama didn’t do the things that Trump has done. He didn’t provoke and attack the media and his opposition the way Trump has done. He didn’t burn bridges, break promises and overtly leverage aid to a foreign country in order to open an investigation into his political opponent.

I’m not a supporter of impeachment so I do agree with you that it is overkill but I also see the apples and oranges you are trying to compare and it’s not a fair argument

Funny.

Top 5 ways Obama attacked the media.

5. Manipulating media coverage


While media was generally very positive toward Obama, he wasn’t willing to risk losing control in an interview while he was running for reelection should a journalist actually try to ask a tough question. To solve this problem, Obama went to local media outlets to do interviews.

Why does this matter? Well, the reason is control. National media outlets would not be so open to ground rules for interviews. But local media outlets were another story. Local news stations don’t often get the opportunity to interview the president of the United States and are far more willing to agree to ground rules, such as establishing what topics can be discussed or what questions can’t be asked.

Obama was clearly more comfortable when he could dictate the terms of an interview. By August 2012, Obama had done fifty-eight local media interviews, but only eight national media interviews.





4. Proposed government monitors in newsrooms


The Constitution protects freedom of the press because a free press is a check on the power of our elected leaders. Obama didn’t want this check, not on his watch, and made many efforts to rein it in. Early in his second term, Obama’s FCC proposed a new program that would have put FCC agents in media newsrooms “to determine how stories were selected, whether there was bias in reporting," and whether "critical information needs" were being met. These monitors would be placed not only in broadcast newsrooms, but also print media outlets that the FCC had no regulatory authority over. Because the FCC controls licensing of broadcast media, these monitors would have been effective intimidation tools… a constant reminder to the media that if the government didn’t like what you were saying, your license to broadcast could be revoked.

Who knows what would have happened had it not been for FCC commissioner Ajit Pai (now chairman under Trump), who exposed the existence of the proposed program in 2014, causing outrage and the eventual scrapping of the program.



3. Threatening journalists for negative coverage


After trying to blame Republicans for so-called sequestration budget “cuts,” Obama was less than thrilled when journalist Bob Woodward wrote both in his book, The Price of Politics, and in an early 2013 opinion piece in The Washington Post that automatic spending cuts had been proposed by the White House and personally approved and signed into law by Obama. Less than a week after the piece ran, Woodward revealed that a senior White House official warned him he would “regret” calling Obama out for his role in the sequester. After Woodward revealed his experience, other journalists came forward with similar stories.

Ron Fournier, the former editor-in-chief of National Journal, said of the Obama administration: “I received several emails and telephone calls from this White House official filled with vulgarity, abusive language, and virtually the same phrase that Woodward called a veiled threat.” Lanny Davis, Bill Clinton’s longtime advisor and now lawyer to Michael Cohen, also came forward with claims he had received similar threats for unflattering pieces he wrote about Obama in the Washington Times. Liberal journalist Jonathan Alter said he’d been subjected to abusive treatment from the Obama administration for writing something they didn’t like. “There is a kind of threatening tone that, from time to time — not all the time — comes out of these guys,” he said. A young female reporter was called crude names in an email for merely asking important questions of an Obama cabinet secretary.



2. Spying on the media


If threatening journalists for asking tough questions and writing unflattering articles isn’t bad enough, all I can say is that it gets worse. The Obama administration actually spied on the media. Less than six months into Obama’s second term we learned that his Justice Department secretly obtained two months of phone records of AP reporters and editors. What was the Obama administration after? They wouldn’t say, but Gary Pruitt, the president and CEO of the Associated Press, had an idea:



These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.


Similarly, the Justice Department secretly obtained then-Fox News reporter James Rosen’s phone records, tracked his movements, and read his emails while investigating possible leaks of classified information to Rosen for an article on North Korea’s nuclear program. One consequence of this Obama administration spying was that longtime sources stopped talking to the Associated Press and other news organizations.





1. Trying to jail journalists and whistleblowers


For all of Donald Trump’s mean words and use of the term “fake news,” I think we can all agree that such things aren’t nearly as bad as threatening and spying on journalists, right? Do you still think Barack Obama was an advocate of the free press? What if I told you he actually tried to put journalists in jail… for doing their jobs! The aforementioned James Rosen, who was subjected to Obama administration spying, was also threatened with jail time when the Obama Justice Department labeled him a “co-conspirator” with one of his sources who was charged with violating the Espionage Act of 1917 for leaking the information to Rosen. Another journalist, James Risen of the New York Times, was similarly treated as a co-conspirator with a government source indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act. Risen was subpoenaed, and originally compelled to testify against one of his sources.

The Obama administration used the Espionage Act six times in eight years to go after government sources, more than double the number of all previous administrations combined. Risen would later describe the Obama administration as “the greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation.”

Leonard Downie Jr., the former executive director of the Washington Post, said “the administration’s war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration.”

The Top Five Ways Obama Attacked the Free Press

 

[Slade3200]

you remember when the Republicans pull the same crap next time they are in the minority. I want to hear the same condemnation from you.

We were in the minority when Obama first took office, Slade...remind me again when it was the GOP attempted to impeach Barack Obama back then? I must have missed that... (eye roll)

Efforts to impeach Barack Obama - Wikipedia

Come on Slade...you can do better than that nonsense! When did the House even come close to impeaching Barry? You post a bunch of people talking smack about Obama and count that as a GOP attempt to impeach?

I quote from Wiki... "No list of articles of impeachment was ever drawn up and proposed to the Judiciary Committee." Care to try again?

i really don’t see the point in comparing the two. Obama didn’t do the things that Trump has done. He didn’t provoke and attack the media and his opposition the way Trump has done. He didn’t burn bridges, break promises and overtly leverage aid to a foreign country in order to open an investigation into his political opponent.

I’m not a supporter of impeachment so I do agree with you that it is overkill but I also see the apples and oranges you are trying to compare and it’s not a fair argument

Funny.

Top 5 ways Obama attacked the media.

5. Manipulating media coverage


While media was generally very positive toward Obama, he wasn’t willing to risk losing control in an interview while he was running for reelection should a journalist actually try to ask a tough question. To solve this problem, Obama went to local media outlets to do interviews.

Why does this matter? Well, the reason is control. National media outlets would not be so open to ground rules for interviews. But local media outlets were another story. Local news stations don’t often get the opportunity to interview the president of the United States and are far more willing to agree to ground rules, such as establishing what topics can be discussed or what questions can’t be asked.

Obama was clearly more comfortable when he could dictate the terms of an interview. By August 2012, Obama had done fifty-eight local media interviews, but only eight national media interviews.





4. Proposed government monitors in newsrooms


The Constitution protects freedom of the press because a free press is a check on the power of our elected leaders. Obama didn’t want this check, not on his watch, and made many efforts to rein it in. Early in his second term, Obama’s FCC proposed a new program that would have put FCC agents in media newsrooms “to determine how stories were selected, whether there was bias in reporting," and whether "critical information needs" were being met. These monitors would be placed not only in broadcast newsrooms, but also print media outlets that the FCC had no regulatory authority over. Because the FCC controls licensing of broadcast media, these monitors would have been effective intimidation tools… a constant reminder to the media that if the government didn’t like what you were saying, your license to broadcast could be revoked.

Who knows what would have happened had it not been for FCC commissioner Ajit Pai (now chairman under Trump), who exposed the existence of the proposed program in 2014, causing outrage and the eventual scrapping of the program.



3. Threatening journalists for negative coverage


After trying to blame Republicans for so-called sequestration budget “cuts,” Obama was less than thrilled when journalist Bob Woodward wrote both in his book, The Price of Politics, and in an early 2013 opinion piece in The Washington Post that automatic spending cuts had been proposed by the White House and personally approved and signed into law by Obama. Less than a week after the piece ran, Woodward revealed that a senior White House official warned him he would “regret” calling Obama out for his role in the sequester. After Woodward revealed his experience, other journalists came forward with similar stories.

Ron Fournier, the former editor-in-chief of National Journal, said of the Obama administration: “I received several emails and telephone calls from this White House official filled with vulgarity, abusive language, and virtually the same phrase that Woodward called a veiled threat.” Lanny Davis, Bill Clinton’s longtime advisor and now lawyer to Michael Cohen, also came forward with claims he had received similar threats for unflattering pieces he wrote about Obama in the Washington Times. Liberal journalist Jonathan Alter said he’d been subjected to abusive treatment from the Obama administration for writing something they didn’t like. “There is a kind of threatening tone that, from time to time — not all the time — comes out of these guys,” he said. A young female reporter was called crude names in an email for merely asking important questions of an Obama cabinet secretary.



2. Spying on the media


If threatening journalists for asking tough questions and writing unflattering articles isn’t bad enough, all I can say is that it gets worse. The Obama administration actually spied on the media. Less than six months into Obama’s second term we learned that his Justice Department secretly obtained two months of phone records of AP reporters and editors. What was the Obama administration after? They wouldn’t say, but Gary Pruitt, the president and CEO of the Associated Press, had an idea:



These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.


Similarly, the Justice Department secretly obtained then-Fox News reporter James Rosen’s phone records, tracked his movements, and read his emails while investigating possible leaks of classified information to Rosen for an article on North Korea’s nuclear program. One consequence of this Obama administration spying was that longtime sources stopped talking to the Associated Press and other news organizations.





1. Trying to jail journalists and whistleblowers


For all of Donald Trump’s mean words and use of the term “fake news,” I think we can all agree that such things aren’t nearly as bad as threatening and spying on journalists, right? Do you still think Barack Obama was an advocate of the free press? What if I told you he actually tried to put journalists in jail… for doing their jobs! The aforementioned James Rosen, who was subjected to Obama administration spying, was also threatened with jail time when the Obama Justice Department labeled him a “co-conspirator” with one of his sources who was charged with violating the Espionage Act of 1917 for leaking the information to Rosen. Another journalist, James Risen of the New York Times, was similarly treated as a co-conspirator with a government source indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act. Risen was subpoenaed, and originally compelled to testify against one of his sources.

The Obama administration used the Espionage Act six times in eight years to go after government sources, more than double the number of all previous administrations combined. Risen would later describe the Obama administration as “the greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation.”

Leonard Downie Jr., the former executive director of the Washington Post, said “the administration’s war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration.”

The Top Five Ways Obama Attacked the Free Press

whats your point? Do you really think any of that holds a candle to the “fake news media” “enemy of the people” campaign that Trump has paraded?

 

[Nostra]

We were in the minority when Obama first took office, Slade...remind me again when it was the GOP attempted to impeach Barack Obama back then? I must have missed that... (eye roll)

Efforts to impeach Barack Obama - Wikipedia

Come on Slade...you can do better than that nonsense! When did the House even come close to impeaching Barry? You post a bunch of people talking smack about Obama and count that as a GOP attempt to impeach?

I quote from Wiki... "No list of articles of impeachment was ever drawn up and proposed to the Judiciary Committee." Care to try again?

i really don’t see the point in comparing the two. Obama didn’t do the things that Trump has done. He didn’t provoke and attack the media and his opposition the way Trump has done. He didn’t burn bridges, break promises and overtly leverage aid to a foreign country in order to open an investigation into his political opponent.

I’m not a supporter of impeachment so I do agree with you that it is overkill but I also see the apples and oranges you are trying to compare and it’s not a fair argument

Funny.

Top 5 ways Obama attacked the media.

5. Manipulating media coverage


While media was generally very positive toward Obama, he wasn’t willing to risk losing control in an interview while he was running for reelection should a journalist actually try to ask a tough question. To solve this problem, Obama went to local media outlets to do interviews.

Why does this matter? Well, the reason is control. National media outlets would not be so open to ground rules for interviews. But local media outlets were another story. Local news stations don’t often get the opportunity to interview the president of the United States and are far more willing to agree to ground rules, such as establishing what topics can be discussed or what questions can’t be asked.

Obama was clearly more comfortable when he could dictate the terms of an interview. By August 2012, Obama had done fifty-eight local media interviews, but only eight national media interviews.





4. Proposed government monitors in newsrooms


The Constitution protects freedom of the press because a free press is a check on the power of our elected leaders. Obama didn’t want this check, not on his watch, and made many efforts to rein it in. Early in his second term, Obama’s FCC proposed a new program that would have put FCC agents in media newsrooms “to determine how stories were selected, whether there was bias in reporting," and whether "critical information needs" were being met. These monitors would be placed not only in broadcast newsrooms, but also print media outlets that the FCC had no regulatory authority over. Because the FCC controls licensing of broadcast media, these monitors would have been effective intimidation tools… a constant reminder to the media that if the government didn’t like what you were saying, your license to broadcast could be revoked.

Who knows what would have happened had it not been for FCC commissioner Ajit Pai (now chairman under Trump), who exposed the existence of the proposed program in 2014, causing outrage and the eventual scrapping of the program.



3. Threatening journalists for negative coverage


After trying to blame Republicans for so-called sequestration budget “cuts,” Obama was less than thrilled when journalist Bob Woodward wrote both in his book, The Price of Politics, and in an early 2013 opinion piece in The Washington Post that automatic spending cuts had been proposed by the White House and personally approved and signed into law by Obama. Less than a week after the piece ran, Woodward revealed that a senior White House official warned him he would “regret” calling Obama out for his role in the sequester. After Woodward revealed his experience, other journalists came forward with similar stories.

Ron Fournier, the former editor-in-chief of National Journal, said of the Obama administration: “I received several emails and telephone calls from this White House official filled with vulgarity, abusive language, and virtually the same phrase that Woodward called a veiled threat.” Lanny Davis, Bill Clinton’s longtime advisor and now lawyer to Michael Cohen, also came forward with claims he had received similar threats for unflattering pieces he wrote about Obama in the Washington Times. Liberal journalist Jonathan Alter said he’d been subjected to abusive treatment from the Obama administration for writing something they didn’t like. “There is a kind of threatening tone that, from time to time — not all the time — comes out of these guys,” he said. A young female reporter was called crude names in an email for merely asking important questions of an Obama cabinet secretary.



2. Spying on the media


If threatening journalists for asking tough questions and writing unflattering articles isn’t bad enough, all I can say is that it gets worse. The Obama administration actually spied on the media. Less than six months into Obama’s second term we learned that his Justice Department secretly obtained two months of phone records of AP reporters and editors. What was the Obama administration after? They wouldn’t say, but Gary Pruitt, the president and CEO of the Associated Press, had an idea:



These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.


Similarly, the Justice Department secretly obtained then-Fox News reporter James Rosen’s phone records, tracked his movements, and read his emails while investigating possible leaks of classified information to Rosen for an article on North Korea’s nuclear program. One consequence of this Obama administration spying was that longtime sources stopped talking to the Associated Press and other news organizations.





1. Trying to jail journalists and whistleblowers


For all of Donald Trump’s mean words and use of the term “fake news,” I think we can all agree that such things aren’t nearly as bad as threatening and spying on journalists, right? Do you still think Barack Obama was an advocate of the free press? What if I told you he actually tried to put journalists in jail… for doing their jobs! The aforementioned James Rosen, who was subjected to Obama administration spying, was also threatened with jail time when the Obama Justice Department labeled him a “co-conspirator” with one of his sources who was charged with violating the Espionage Act of 1917 for leaking the information to Rosen. Another journalist, James Risen of the New York Times, was similarly treated as a co-conspirator with a government source indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act. Risen was subpoenaed, and originally compelled to testify against one of his sources.

The Obama administration used the Espionage Act six times in eight years to go after government sources, more than double the number of all previous administrations combined. Risen would later describe the Obama administration as “the greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation.”

Leonard Downie Jr., the former executive director of the Washington Post, said “the administration’s war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration.”

The Top Five Ways Obama Attacked the Free Press

whats your point? Do you really think any of that holds a candle to the “fake news media” “enemy of the people” campaign that Trump has paraded?

All 5 are worse than Trump telling the truth about Fake News.

 

[Slade3200]

Efforts to impeach Barack Obama - Wikipedia

Come on Slade...you can do better than that nonsense! When did the House even come close to impeaching Barry? You post a bunch of people talking smack about Obama and count that as a GOP attempt to impeach?

I quote from Wiki... "No list of articles of impeachment was ever drawn up and proposed to the Judiciary Committee." Care to try again?

i really don’t see the point in comparing the two. Obama didn’t do the things that Trump has done. He didn’t provoke and attack the media and his opposition the way Trump has done. He didn’t burn bridges, break promises and overtly leverage aid to a foreign country in order to open an investigation into his political opponent.

I’m not a supporter of impeachment so I do agree with you that it is overkill but I also see the apples and oranges you are trying to compare and it’s not a fair argument

Funny.

Top 5 ways Obama attacked the media.

5. Manipulating media coverage


While media was generally very positive toward Obama, he wasn’t willing to risk losing control in an interview while he was running for reelection should a journalist actually try to ask a tough question. To solve this problem, Obama went to local media outlets to do interviews.

Why does this matter? Well, the reason is control. National media outlets would not be so open to ground rules for interviews. But local media outlets were another story. Local news stations don’t often get the opportunity to interview the president of the United States and are far more willing to agree to ground rules, such as establishing what topics can be discussed or what questions can’t be asked.

Obama was clearly more comfortable when he could dictate the terms of an interview. By August 2012, Obama had done fifty-eight local media interviews, but only eight national media interviews.





4. Proposed government monitors in newsrooms


The Constitution protects freedom of the press because a free press is a check on the power of our elected leaders. Obama didn’t want this check, not on his watch, and made many efforts to rein it in. Early in his second term, Obama’s FCC proposed a new program that would have put FCC agents in media newsrooms “to determine how stories were selected, whether there was bias in reporting," and whether "critical information needs" were being met. These monitors would be placed not only in broadcast newsrooms, but also print media outlets that the FCC had no regulatory authority over. Because the FCC controls licensing of broadcast media, these monitors would have been effective intimidation tools… a constant reminder to the media that if the government didn’t like what you were saying, your license to broadcast could be revoked.

Who knows what would have happened had it not been for FCC commissioner Ajit Pai (now chairman under Trump), who exposed the existence of the proposed program in 2014, causing outrage and the eventual scrapping of the program.



3. Threatening journalists for negative coverage


After trying to blame Republicans for so-called sequestration budget “cuts,” Obama was less than thrilled when journalist Bob Woodward wrote both in his book, The Price of Politics, and in an early 2013 opinion piece in The Washington Post that automatic spending cuts had been proposed by the White House and personally approved and signed into law by Obama. Less than a week after the piece ran, Woodward revealed that a senior White House official warned him he would “regret” calling Obama out for his role in the sequester. After Woodward revealed his experience, other journalists came forward with similar stories.

Ron Fournier, the former editor-in-chief of National Journal, said of the Obama administration: “I received several emails and telephone calls from this White House official filled with vulgarity, abusive language, and virtually the same phrase that Woodward called a veiled threat.” Lanny Davis, Bill Clinton’s longtime advisor and now lawyer to Michael Cohen, also came forward with claims he had received similar threats for unflattering pieces he wrote about Obama in the Washington Times. Liberal journalist Jonathan Alter said he’d been subjected to abusive treatment from the Obama administration for writing something they didn’t like. “There is a kind of threatening tone that, from time to time — not all the time — comes out of these guys,” he said. A young female reporter was called crude names in an email for merely asking important questions of an Obama cabinet secretary.



2. Spying on the media


If threatening journalists for asking tough questions and writing unflattering articles isn’t bad enough, all I can say is that it gets worse. The Obama administration actually spied on the media. Less than six months into Obama’s second term we learned that his Justice Department secretly obtained two months of phone records of AP reporters and editors. What was the Obama administration after? They wouldn’t say, but Gary Pruitt, the president and CEO of the Associated Press, had an idea:



These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.


Similarly, the Justice Department secretly obtained then-Fox News reporter James Rosen’s phone records, tracked his movements, and read his emails while investigating possible leaks of classified information to Rosen for an article on North Korea’s nuclear program. One consequence of this Obama administration spying was that longtime sources stopped talking to the Associated Press and other news organizations.





1. Trying to jail journalists and whistleblowers


For all of Donald Trump’s mean words and use of the term “fake news,” I think we can all agree that such things aren’t nearly as bad as threatening and spying on journalists, right? Do you still think Barack Obama was an advocate of the free press? What if I told you he actually tried to put journalists in jail… for doing their jobs! The aforementioned James Rosen, who was subjected to Obama administration spying, was also threatened with jail time when the Obama Justice Department labeled him a “co-conspirator” with one of his sources who was charged with violating the Espionage Act of 1917 for leaking the information to Rosen. Another journalist, James Risen of the New York Times, was similarly treated as a co-conspirator with a government source indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act. Risen was subpoenaed, and originally compelled to testify against one of his sources.

The Obama administration used the Espionage Act six times in eight years to go after government sources, more than double the number of all previous administrations combined. Risen would later describe the Obama administration as “the greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation.”

Leonard Downie Jr., the former executive director of the Washington Post, said “the administration’s war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration.”

The Top Five Ways Obama Attacked the Free Press

whats your point? Do you really think any of that holds a candle to the “fake news media” “enemy of the people” campaign that Trump has paraded?

All 5 are worse than Trump telling the
11/13 11/20 11/22 10/30/19 15 CL King George Middle School Kelley Cox
__Lycra Headband
100 __Ask me later [email protected]12.va.us 540-775-2331 , , , ... truth about Fake News.

oh excellent, great false comparison, such a riveting argument. Get real and come back when you’re ready to have an honest debate

 

[Billy_Kinetta]

This democratic effort to conduct a Coup de Etat via a fallacious use of impeachment is getting more ridiculous by the day.

When it finally falls apart and that will not take much longer....Schiff must be indicted and charged with treason....to make sure this sort of harassment of a President never happens again.

At no time in our history has any political party put our nation in such danger simply because of party politics.

In fact this whole travesty rises far above party politics....to the level of Treason...that is very clear.

Jordan: Schiff Directed Vindman Not to Answer Republican's Questions


Battleground States Oppose Impeachment and Removal

you remember when the Republicans pull the same crap next time they are in the minority. I want to hear the same condemnation from you.

The democrats are the only ones that have ever attempted a Coup D Etat in the entire history of America.

What the democrats will now be faced with after their attempt at a coup fails is the arrest and indictment for treason of the leaders of this failed coup.

Remember you heard it here first.

Really? Google “Clinton impeachment” and educate yourself

Lying under oath. Educate YOURself.

how did he end up lying under oath?

As does everyone else. He swore to tell the truth and then lied.

 

[Nostra]

Come on Slade...you can do better than that nonsense! When did the House even come close to impeaching Barry? You post a bunch of people talking smack about Obama and count that as a GOP attempt to impeach?

I quote from Wiki... "No list of articles of impeachment was ever drawn up and proposed to the Judiciary Committee." Care to try again?

i really don’t see the point in comparing the two. Obama didn’t do the things that Trump has done. He didn’t provoke and attack the media and his opposition the way Trump has done. He didn’t burn bridges, break promises and overtly leverage aid to a foreign country in order to open an investigation into his political opponent.

I’m not a supporter of impeachment so I do agree with you that it is overkill but I also see the apples and oranges you are trying to compare and it’s not a fair argument

Funny.

Top 5 ways Obama attacked the media.

5. Manipulating media coverage


While media was generally very positive toward Obama, he wasn’t willing to risk losing control in an interview while he was running for reelection should a journalist actually try to ask a tough question. To solve this problem, Obama went to local media outlets to do interviews.

Why does this matter? Well, the reason is control. National media outlets would not be so open to ground rules for interviews. But local media outlets were another story. Local news stations don’t often get the opportunity to interview the president of the United States and are far more willing to agree to ground rules, such as establishing what topics can be discussed or what questions can’t be asked.

Obama was clearly more comfortable when he could dictate the terms of an interview. By August 2012, Obama had done fifty-eight local media interviews, but only eight national media interviews.





4. Proposed government monitors in newsrooms


The Constitution protects freedom of the press because a free press is a check on the power of our elected leaders. Obama didn’t want this check, not on his watch, and made many efforts to rein it in. Early in his second term, Obama’s FCC proposed a new program that would have put FCC agents in media newsrooms “to determine how stories were selected, whether there was bias in reporting," and whether "critical information needs" were being met. These monitors would be placed not only in broadcast newsrooms, but also print media outlets that the FCC had no regulatory authority over. Because the FCC controls licensing of broadcast media, these monitors would have been effective intimidation tools… a constant reminder to the media that if the government didn’t like what you were saying, your license to broadcast could be revoked.

Who knows what would have happened had it not been for FCC commissioner Ajit Pai (now chairman under Trump), who exposed the existence of the proposed program in 2014, causing outrage and the eventual scrapping of the program.



3. Threatening journalists for negative coverage


After trying to blame Republicans for so-called sequestration budget “cuts,” Obama was less than thrilled when journalist Bob Woodward wrote both in his book, The Price of Politics, and in an early 2013 opinion piece in The Washington Post that automatic spending cuts had been proposed by the White House and personally approved and signed into law by Obama. Less than a week after the piece ran, Woodward revealed that a senior White House official warned him he would “regret” calling Obama out for his role in the sequester. After Woodward revealed his experience, other journalists came forward with similar stories.

Ron Fournier, the former editor-in-chief of National Journal, said of the Obama administration: “I received several emails and telephone calls from this White House official filled with vulgarity, abusive language, and virtually the same phrase that Woodward called a veiled threat.” Lanny Davis, Bill Clinton’s longtime advisor and now lawyer to Michael Cohen, also came forward with claims he had received similar threats for unflattering pieces he wrote about Obama in the Washington Times. Liberal journalist Jonathan Alter said he’d been subjected to abusive treatment from the Obama administration for writing something they didn’t like. “There is a kind of threatening tone that, from time to time — not all the time — comes out of these guys,” he said. A young female reporter was called crude names in an email for merely asking important questions of an Obama cabinet secretary.



2. Spying on the media


If threatening journalists for asking tough questions and writing unflattering articles isn’t bad enough, all I can say is that it gets worse. The Obama administration actually spied on the media. Less than six months into Obama’s second term we learned that his Justice Department secretly obtained two months of phone records of AP reporters and editors. What was the Obama administration after? They wouldn’t say, but Gary Pruitt, the president and CEO of the Associated Press, had an idea:



These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.


Similarly, the Justice Department secretly obtained then-Fox News reporter James Rosen’s phone records, tracked his movements, and read his emails while investigating possible leaks of classified information to Rosen for an article on North Korea’s nuclear program. One consequence of this Obama administration spying was that longtime sources stopped talking to the Associated Press and other news organizations.





1. Trying to jail journalists and whistleblowers


For all of Donald Trump’s mean words and use of the term “fake news,” I think we can all agree that such things aren’t nearly as bad as threatening and spying on journalists, right? Do you still think Barack Obama was an advocate of the free press? What if I told you he actually tried to put journalists in jail… for doing their jobs! The aforementioned James Rosen, who was subjected to Obama administration spying, was also threatened with jail time when the Obama Justice Department labeled him a “co-conspirator” with one of his sources who was charged with violating the Espionage Act of 1917 for leaking the information to Rosen. Another journalist, James Risen of the New York Times, was similarly treated as a co-conspirator with a government source indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act. Risen was subpoenaed, and originally compelled to testify against one of his sources.

The Obama administration used the Espionage Act six times in eight years to go after government sources, more than double the number of all previous administrations combined. Risen would later describe the Obama administration as “the greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation.”

Leonard Downie Jr., the former executive director of the Washington Post, said “the administration’s war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration.”

The Top Five Ways Obama Attacked the Free Press

whats your point? Do you really think any of that holds a candle to the “fake news media” “enemy of the people” campaign that Trump has paraded?

All 5 are worse than Trump telling the
11/13 11/20 11/22 10/30/19 15 CL King George Middle School Kelley Cox
__Lycra Headband
100 __Ask me later [email protected]12.va.us 540-775-2331 , , , ... truth about Fake News.

oh excellent, great false comparison, such a riveting argument. Get real and come back when you’re ready to have an honest debate

Um, YOU made the comparison. Then you asked me if I thought what Obama did "held a candle" to Trump calling out Fake News.

You are in over your head, obviously.

 

[Slade3200]

you remember when the Republicans pull the same crap next time they are in the minority. I want to hear the same condemnation from you.

The democrats are the only ones that have ever attempted a Coup D Etat in the entire history of America.

What the democrats will now be faced with after their attempt at a coup fails is the arrest and indictment for treason of the leaders of this failed coup.

Remember you heard it here first.

Really? Google “Clinton impeachment” and educate yourself

Lying under oath. Educate YOURself.

how did he end up lying under oath?

As does everyone else. He swore to tell the truth and then lied.

Youre right but you avoided my point so I guess I have to spell it out. He lied under oath while he was being investigated. An investigation that started with nothing that had to do with sexual relations BTW. Impeachment came after the investigation which directly yielded the charges.

the dems are currently in the investigation stage. You keep conflating things that are not comparable. Take a breath and understand the process before you further confuse things.

 

[Slade3200]

i really don’t see the point in comparing the two. Obama didn’t do the things that Trump has done. He didn’t provoke and attack the media and his opposition the way Trump has done. He didn’t burn bridges, break promises and overtly leverage aid to a foreign country in order to open an investigation into his political opponent.

I’m not a supporter of impeachment so I do agree with you that it is overkill but I also see the apples and oranges you are trying to compare and it’s not a fair argument

Funny.

Top 5 ways Obama attacked the media.

5. Manipulating media coverage


While media was generally very positive toward Obama, he wasn’t willing to risk losing control in an interview while he was running for reelection should a journalist actually try to ask a tough question. To solve this problem, Obama went to local media outlets to do interviews.

Why does this matter? Well, the reason is control. National media outlets would not be so open to ground rules for interviews. But local media outlets were another story. Local news stations don’t often get the opportunity to interview the president of the United States and are far more willing to agree to ground rules, such as establishing what topics can be discussed or what questions can’t be asked.

Obama was clearly more comfortable when he could dictate the terms of an interview. By August 2012, Obama had done fifty-eight local media interviews, but only eight national media interviews.





4. Proposed government monitors in newsrooms


The Constitution protects freedom of the press because a free press is a check on the power of our elected leaders. Obama didn’t want this check, not on his watch, and made many efforts to rein it in. Early in his second term, Obama’s FCC proposed a new program that would have put FCC agents in media newsrooms “to determine how stories were selected, whether there was bias in reporting," and whether "critical information needs" were being met. These monitors would be placed not only in broadcast newsrooms, but also print media outlets that the FCC had no regulatory authority over. Because the FCC controls licensing of broadcast media, these monitors would have been effective intimidation tools… a constant reminder to the media that if the government didn’t like what you were saying, your license to broadcast could be revoked.

Who knows what would have happened had it not been for FCC commissioner Ajit Pai (now chairman under Trump), who exposed the existence of the proposed program in 2014, causing outrage and the eventual scrapping of the program.



3. Threatening journalists for negative coverage


After trying to blame Republicans for so-called sequestration budget “cuts,” Obama was less than thrilled when journalist Bob Woodward wrote both in his book, The Price of Politics, and in an early 2013 opinion piece in The Washington Post that automatic spending cuts had been proposed by the White House and personally approved and signed into law by Obama. Less than a week after the piece ran, Woodward revealed that a senior White House official warned him he would “regret” calling Obama out for his role in the sequester. After Woodward revealed his experience, other journalists came forward with similar stories.

Ron Fournier, the former editor-in-chief of National Journal, said of the Obama administration: “I received several emails and telephone calls from this White House official filled with vulgarity, abusive language, and virtually the same phrase that Woodward called a veiled threat.” Lanny Davis, Bill Clinton’s longtime advisor and now lawyer to Michael Cohen, also came forward with claims he had received similar threats for unflattering pieces he wrote about Obama in the Washington Times. Liberal journalist Jonathan Alter said he’d been subjected to abusive treatment from the Obama administration for writing something they didn’t like. “There is a kind of threatening tone that, from time to time — not all the time — comes out of these guys,” he said. A young female reporter was called crude names in an email for merely asking important questions of an Obama cabinet secretary.



2. Spying on the media


If threatening journalists for asking tough questions and writing unflattering articles isn’t bad enough, all I can say is that it gets worse. The Obama administration actually spied on the media. Less than six months into Obama’s second term we learned that his Justice Department secretly obtained two months of phone records of AP reporters and editors. What was the Obama administration after? They wouldn’t say, but Gary Pruitt, the president and CEO of the Associated Press, had an idea:



These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.


Similarly, the Justice Department secretly obtained then-Fox News reporter James Rosen’s phone records, tracked his movements, and read his emails while investigating possible leaks of classified information to Rosen for an article on North Korea’s nuclear program. One consequence of this Obama administration spying was that longtime sources stopped talking to the Associated Press and other news organizations.





1. Trying to jail journalists and whistleblowers


For all of Donald Trump’s mean words and use of the term “fake news,” I think we can all agree that such things aren’t nearly as bad as threatening and spying on journalists, right? Do you still think Barack Obama was an advocate of the free press? What if I told you he actually tried to put journalists in jail… for doing their jobs! The aforementioned James Rosen, who was subjected to Obama administration spying, was also threatened with jail time when the Obama Justice Department labeled him a “co-conspirator” with one of his sources who was charged with violating the Espionage Act of 1917 for leaking the information to Rosen. Another journalist, James Risen of the New York Times, was similarly treated as a co-conspirator with a government source indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act. Risen was subpoenaed, and originally compelled to testify against one of his sources.

The Obama administration used the Espionage Act six times in eight years to go after government sources, more than double the number of all previous administrations combined. Risen would later describe the Obama administration as “the greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation.”

Leonard Downie Jr., the former executive director of the Washington Post, said “the administration’s war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration.”

The Top Five Ways Obama Attacked the Free Press

whats your point? Do you really think any of that holds a candle to the “fake news media” “enemy of the people” campaign that Trump has paraded?

All 5 are worse than Trump telling the
11/13 11/20 11/22 10/30/19 15 CL King George Middle School Kelley Cox
__Lycra Headband
100 __Ask me later [email protected]12.va.us 540-775-2331 , , , ... truth about Fake News.

oh excellent, great false comparison, such a riveting argument. Get real and come back when you’re ready to have an honest debate

Um, YOU made the comparison. Then you asked me if I thought what Obama did "held a candle" to Trump calling out Fake News.

You are in over your head, obviously.

You mischaracterized my critiques on trump to be “Telling the truth about fake news” if you need to lie to win a debate then you’re only fooling yourself

 

[Billy_Kinetta]

The democrats are the only ones that have ever attempted a Coup D Etat in the entire history of America.

What the democrats will now be faced with after their attempt at a coup fails is the arrest and indictment for treason of the leaders of this failed coup.

Remember you heard it here first.

Really? Google “Clinton impeachment” and educate yourself

Lying under oath. Educate YOURself.

how did he end up lying under oath?

As does everyone else. He swore to tell the truth and then lied.

Youre right but you avoided my point so I guess I have to spell it out. He lied under oath while he was being investigated. An investigation that started with nothing that had to do with sexual relations BTW. Impeachment came after the investigation which directly yielded the charges.

the dems are currently in the investigation stage. You keep conflating things that are not comparable. Take a breath and understand the process before you further confuse things.

Irrelevant. He lied under oath. That's a crime.

What the Democrats are doing is making their biggest political mistake ever.

 

[Slade3200]

Really? Google “Clinton impeachment” and educate yourself

Lying under oath. Educate YOURself.

how did he end up lying under oath?

As does everyone else. He swore to tell the truth and then lied.

Youre right but you avoided my point so I guess I have to spell it out. He lied under oath while he was being investigated. An investigation that started with nothing that had to do with sexual relations BTW. Impeachment came after the investigation which directly yielded the charges.

the dems are currently in the investigation stage. You keep conflating things that are not comparable. Take a breath and understand the process before you further confuse things.

Irrelevant. He lied under oath. That's a crime.

What the Democrats are doing is making their biggest political mistake ever.

So now your completely abandoning the debate? Come on man you can do better than that!

Clinton lied in an interview while under oath. That interview happened because of an investigation which I assume you’d argue was legit. So now that Trump is being investigated how about he gets interviewed under oath? If he did and then was found to have lied is there any mystery as to what the talking points would be?! “Illegitimate investigation” “witch hunt” “hoax” yada yada yada

 

[Nostra]

Funny.

Top 5 ways Obama attacked the media.

5. Manipulating media coverage


While media was generally very positive toward Obama, he wasn’t willing to risk losing control in an interview while he was running for reelection should a journalist actually try to ask a tough question. To solve this problem, Obama went to local media outlets to do interviews.

Why does this matter? Well, the reason is control. National media outlets would not be so open to ground rules for interviews. But local media outlets were another story. Local news stations don’t often get the opportunity to interview the president of the United States and are far more willing to agree to ground rules, such as establishing what topics can be discussed or what questions can’t be asked.

Obama was clearly more comfortable when he could dictate the terms of an interview. By August 2012, Obama had done fifty-eight local media interviews, but only eight national media interviews.





4. Proposed government monitors in newsrooms


The Constitution protects freedom of the press because a free press is a check on the power of our elected leaders. Obama didn’t want this check, not on his watch, and made many efforts to rein it in. Early in his second term, Obama’s FCC proposed a new program that would have put FCC agents in media newsrooms “to determine how stories were selected, whether there was bias in reporting," and whether "critical information needs" were being met. These monitors would be placed not only in broadcast newsrooms, but also print media outlets that the FCC had no regulatory authority over. Because the FCC controls licensing of broadcast media, these monitors would have been effective intimidation tools… a constant reminder to the media that if the government didn’t like what you were saying, your license to broadcast could be revoked.

Who knows what would have happened had it not been for FCC commissioner Ajit Pai (now chairman under Trump), who exposed the existence of the proposed program in 2014, causing outrage and the eventual scrapping of the program.



3. Threatening journalists for negative coverage


After trying to blame Republicans for so-called sequestration budget “cuts,” Obama was less than thrilled when journalist Bob Woodward wrote both in his book, The Price of Politics, and in an early 2013 opinion piece in The Washington Post that automatic spending cuts had been proposed by the White House and personally approved and signed into law by Obama. Less than a week after the piece ran, Woodward revealed that a senior White House official warned him he would “regret” calling Obama out for his role in the sequester. After Woodward revealed his experience, other journalists came forward with similar stories.

Ron Fournier, the former editor-in-chief of National Journal, said of the Obama administration: “I received several emails and telephone calls from this White House official filled with vulgarity, abusive language, and virtually the same phrase that Woodward called a veiled threat.” Lanny Davis, Bill Clinton’s longtime advisor and now lawyer to Michael Cohen, also came forward with claims he had received similar threats for unflattering pieces he wrote about Obama in the Washington Times. Liberal journalist Jonathan Alter said he’d been subjected to abusive treatment from the Obama administration for writing something they didn’t like. “There is a kind of threatening tone that, from time to time — not all the time — comes out of these guys,” he said. A young female reporter was called crude names in an email for merely asking important questions of an Obama cabinet secretary.



2. Spying on the media


If threatening journalists for asking tough questions and writing unflattering articles isn’t bad enough, all I can say is that it gets worse. The Obama administration actually spied on the media. Less than six months into Obama’s second term we learned that his Justice Department secretly obtained two months of phone records of AP reporters and editors. What was the Obama administration after? They wouldn’t say, but Gary Pruitt, the president and CEO of the Associated Press, had an idea:



These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.


Similarly, the Justice Department secretly obtained then-Fox News reporter James Rosen’s phone records, tracked his movements, and read his emails while investigating possible leaks of classified information to Rosen for an article on North Korea’s nuclear program. One consequence of this Obama administration spying was that longtime sources stopped talking to the Associated Press and other news organizations.





1. Trying to jail journalists and whistleblowers


For all of Donald Trump’s mean words and use of the term “fake news,” I think we can all agree that such things aren’t nearly as bad as threatening and spying on journalists, right? Do you still think Barack Obama was an advocate of the free press? What if I told you he actually tried to put journalists in jail… for doing their jobs! The aforementioned James Rosen, who was subjected to Obama administration spying, was also threatened with jail time when the Obama Justice Department labeled him a “co-conspirator” with one of his sources who was charged with violating the Espionage Act of 1917 for leaking the information to Rosen. Another journalist, James Risen of the New York Times, was similarly treated as a co-conspirator with a government source indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act. Risen was subpoenaed, and originally compelled to testify against one of his sources.

The Obama administration used the Espionage Act six times in eight years to go after government sources, more than double the number of all previous administrations combined. Risen would later describe the Obama administration as “the greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation.”

Leonard Downie Jr., the former executive director of the Washington Post, said “the administration’s war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration.”

The Top Five Ways Obama Attacked the Free Press

whats your point? Do you really think any of that holds a candle to the “fake news media” “enemy of the people” campaign that Trump has paraded?

All 5 are worse than Trump telling the
11/13 11/20 11/22 10/30/19 15 CL King George Middle School Kelley Cox
__Lycra Headband
100 __Ask me later [email protected]12.va.us 540-775-2331 , , , ... truth about Fake News.

oh excellent, great false comparison, such a riveting argument. Get real and come back when you’re ready to have an honest debate

Um, YOU made the comparison. Then you asked me if I thought what Obama did "held a candle" to Trump calling out Fake News.

You are in over your head, obviously.

You mischaracterized my critiques on trump to be “Telling the truth about fake news” if you need to lie to win a debate then you’re only fooling yourself

YOU mischaracterized Trump's description of Fake News. I simply corrected your lie.