WHITE HOUSE FIRES CNN, NY TIMES, LA TIMES & POLITICO VIA BRIEFING EXCLUSION

WHITE HOUSE FIRES CNN, NY TIMES, LA TIMES & POLITICO VIA BRIEFING EXCLUSION:

MAINSTREAM MEDIA LIBERAL BIAS vs TRUMP.

TRUMP WILL ALWAYS PREVAIL BECAUSE HE'S A FEARLESS NY MEDIA GENIUS.


Sources: CNN, Alex Jones, Washington Post, NY Times


****** White House blocks CNN, New York Times from press briefing hours after Trump slams media


The White House on Friday barred news outlets — including CNN, the New York Times, Politico and the Los Angeles Times — from attending an off-camera press briefing held by spokesman Sean Spicer, igniting another controversy concerning the relationship between the Trump administration and the media.

The Wall Street Journal, which did participate in the briefing, said in a statement that it was unaware of the exclusions and "had we known at the time, we would not have participated, and we will not participate in such closed briefings in the future."

The Washington Post did not have a reporter present at the time of the gaggle.

CNN's Sara Murray went on air to describe what happened:

We lined up.

We were told there was a list ahead of time, which is sort of abnormal, but we put our name on a list. And then when we went to enter, I was blocked by a White House staffer, who said we were not on the list for this gaggle today.

Now, normally, if you were going to do something like this — an extended gaggle, off camera — you would have one person from each news outlet.

As you know, we have multiple people from CNN here every day. So, if you're going to do something beyond a pool, which is sort of the smallest group of reporters that then disseminates the information, you would have one person from every news outlet.

That is not what the White House was doing today. What the White House was doing was handpicking the outlets they wanted in for this briefing.

So Breitbart, the Washington Times, the One America News Network — news outlets that maybe the White House feels are more favorable were all allowed in, whereas I was blocked from entering, Politico was blocked from entering, the New York Times, the L.A. Times. All of these news outlets were blocked from going to a gaggle.

White House Correspondents' Association President Jeff Mason called in to CNN to say the organization is “still getting information about” the decision, adding:

They clearly wanted to have a gaggle that was not on camera and was not the full press corps today. We don't object to there being briefings like that that aren't always on camera, but we have encouraged them when they want to do something like that ... [to] still do it in the press room and do it in a place where all the reporters have a chance to ask questions.

So, we've made that clear, and we're going to continue to have discussions with them about that. And we're not happy about how this happened today.
The Post's Executive Editor Marty Baron issued the following statement:

“It’s appalling that the White House would exclude news outlets like the New York Times, CNN, Politico, the Los Angeles Times, and BuzzFeed from its publicly announced briefings. This is an undemocratic path that the administration is traveling. There is nothing to be gained from the White House restricting the public’s access to information.

We are currently evaluating what our response will be if this sort of thing happens again.”
White House deputy communications director Raj Shah insisted this was all much ado about nothing.

But New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet declared that “nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties.”

BuzzFeed editor in chief Ben Smith, whose outlet also was excluded, added this: "While we strongly object to the White House's apparent attempt to punish news outlets whose coverage it does not like, we won't let these latest antics distract us from continuing to cover this administration fairly and aggressively."

Ben Wizner, director of the Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at the American Civil Liberties Union called the White House's move "yet another disturbing example of the Trump administration’s contempt for the vital role a free press plays in our democracy."

White House press secretary Sean Spicer himself had previously criticized the idea of limiting media access to the White House.

Two months ago, in a panel discussion, he said open access for the media is “what makes a democracy a democracy versus a dictatorship.”

recent days, the president has grown increasingly critical of what he calls the "fake news media. Hours before the limited-access gaggle, Trump devoted much of an address at the Conservative Political Action Conference to bashing the media.

“A few days ago, I called the fake news media the enemy of the people, and they are,” the president said. “They are the enemy of the people.”

Fox News anchor Bret Baier quickly discouraged gloating on the right, noting that his network's rivals showed solidarity when the Obama White House tried to freeze out Fox News eight years ago.

In 2009, the Obama administration attempted to exclude Fox News from a round of TV interviews with “pay czar” Kenneth Feinberg. Jake Tapper (then of ABC, now of CNN) stood up for one of his network's “sister organizations” during a press briefing.

“Can you explain why it's appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one?” Tapper asked Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary at the time.

Rival networks refused to conduct interviews with Feinberg unless Fox News was granted one, too.

Fox Business Network told The Post that one of its reporters, Blake Burman, also was blocked from participating in the gaggle.

Fox News chief White House correspondent John Roberts said on air that his network will join others in protesting the exclusion of certain outlets.

IRENE Vs. Katrina & Obama Vs. G.W. Bush: Fewer Deaths Under Obama's Watch

Yesterday Pres. Obama Announced That His Administration Continues To Stand By Those Whose Lives Were Personally Impacted By IRENE's Wrath.

Whether The Mainstream Media Cares To Give Pres. Obama Proper Credit For How Well He Handled This Hurricane IRENE Crisis Doesn't Matter. The Entire World Took Notice Of How Well Pres. Obama Handled This Natural Disaster. Only 22 Lives Lost Versus 1,500+ Lives Lost Under G.W. Bush's Administration When Hurricane Katrina Hit. Excellent Work President Obama! God Bless!





Obama on Irene Invites Bush, Katrina Comparisons

“All indications point to this being a historic hurricane,” President Obama said in remarks about Hurricane Irene on Friday morning from his Martha’s Vineyard vacation.

He emphasized that coordination with local agencies has already begun. “Although we can’t predict with perfect certainty the impact of Irene over the next few days, the federal government has spent the better part of last week working closely with communities that could be affected by this storm to see to it that we are prepared.”

That’s what President Obama said publicly, and for a window into what the private briefings might look today and tomorrow, it’s worth looking back at video of President George W. Bush’s briefing with FEMA and National Hurricane Center officials less than a day before Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005. The Associated Press obtained video of that briefing six months after Katrina.

It was a Sunday morning, and President Bush tapped in via video conference from his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Then-FEMA Director Michael Brown was there, as was National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield.

"My gut was this was a bad one and a big one," Brown told the assembled group. "This is, to put it mildly, the big one I think."

Brown went on to express concerns about worst-case scenario plans to shelter residents at the SuperDome, questioning the soundness of its roof and noted the public health challenges of assembling so many people there.

National Hurricane Center director Max Mayfield did his best to emphasize the massive scale of the potential devastation.

“I don’t think anyone can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not, but that is obviously a very, very grave concern," Mayfield warned the group, the latest in a string of warnings he issued as Katrina neared the coast. The night before this briefing with the president, Mayfield had called the governors of Mississippi and Louisiana and the mayor of New Orleans to emphasize his serious concerns. "I just wanted to be able to go to sleep that night knowing that I did all I could do," Mayfield later told the St. Petersburg Times.

The differences between Katrina and Irene are notable, of course. Katrina was a massive Category 5 hurricane, while Irene is currently a Category 2 and the National Hurricane Center does not expect it to grow in strength before it reaches the North Carolina coast Friday night. At this point, however, the hurricane’s pathway is predicted to follow along the entire northern east coast, with warnings stretching up the mid-Atlantic to New York City and Boston.

President Bush did not ask any questions during this Katrina briefing, but he told the group the federal government was "fully prepared."

"I want to assure the folks at the state level that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm, but we will move in whatever resources assets we have at our disposal after the storm to help you deal with the loss of property, and we pray, for no loss of life of course.

What President Bush knew about Katrina’s potential impact, and when he knew it, later became a major political problem for President Bush.

“There is frustration,” President Bush told ABC News days later, when the full impact of Katrina’s devastation was becoming clear. “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.”

The AP later reported that it wasn’t until the day that Katrina was hitting that then-FEMA director Brown said that Bush had asked about reports of breaches, but Bush did not participate in that briefing.


View Larger Map

Sources: AP, MSNBC, Washington Post, WNYC, Youtube, Google Maps

The G.O.P. Fights Back By Revealing CIA Interrogation Briefing Info.

The Hill Briefing Room----

Republicans ignited a firestorm of controversy on Thursday by revealing some of what they had been told at a closed-door Intelligence Committee hearing on the interrogation of terrorism suspects.

Democrats immediately blasted the GOP lawmakers for publicly discussing classified information, while Republicans said Democrats are trying to hide the truth that enhanced interrogation of detainees is effective.

GOP members on the Intelligence Committee on Thursday told The Hill in on-the-record interviews that they were informed that the controversial methods have led to information that prevented terrorist attacks.

Hoekstra did not attend the hearing, but said he later spoke with Republicans on the subcommittee who did. He said he came away with even more proof that the enhanced interrogation techniques employed by the CIA proved effective.

“I think the people who were at the hearing, in my opinion, clearly indicated that the enhanced interrogation techniques worked,” Hoekstra said.

Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), a member of the subcommittee who attended the hearing, concurred with Hoekstra.

“The hearing did address the enhanced interrogation techniques that have been much in the news lately,” Kline said, noting that he was intentionally choosing his words carefully in observance of the committee rules and the nature of the information presented.

“Based on what I heard and the documents I have seen, I came away with a very clear impression that we did gather information that did disrupt terrorist plots,” Kline said.

Neither Hoekstra nor Kline revealed details about the specifics of what they were told Thursday or the identity of the briefers.

Democrats lambasted their Republican counterparts for discussing the information that was provided behind locked doors.

“I am absolutely shocked that members of the Intelligence committee who attended a closed-door hearing… then walked out that hearing – early, by the way – and characterized anything that happened in that hearing,” said Intelligence Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chairwoman Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.).
“My understanding is that’s a violation of the rules. It may be more than that.”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) said, “Members on both sides need to watch what they say.”

Both Schakowsky and Reyes accused GOP members of playing politics with national security.

“I think they are playing a very dangerous game when it comes to the discussion of matters that were sensitive enough to be part of a closed hearing,” Schakowsky said.

Asked about the validity of Republican contentions that information shared in Thursday’s hearing showed the effectiveness of enhanced interrogation techniques, Schakowsky said she could not comment on what was discussed at a closed hearing.

Reyes responded by saying he did not attend the entire hearing.

“I wasn’t at the whole hearing,” Reyes said. “As the chairman my view is we need to get the facts about how the enhanced interrogation techniques came about, not just the results.”

That task has become complicated for Democrats, as has the task of proving any effectiveness, or not, of waterboarding and other similar methods of interrogation.

While Democrats, led by President Obama, have firmly labeled those methods torture, cast doubt on their utility, and called for their abolition, Republicans, led by former Vice President Dick Cheney, have consistently said they have worked.

Cheney has called on Obama to declassify CIA information that he says will show that enhanced interrogation techniques have made the U.S. safer.

Since Obama’s release of the Bush administration legal memos justifying the use of many of those enhanced interrogation techniques, Democrats have been on the defensive on an issue they hoped would place them on the political and moral high ground.

And at the center of the storm has been House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Pelosi has been dogged for weeks about how much she was told by CIA officials about the development and use of waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques.

Pelosi last month accused the CIA of lying to Congress about its treatment of suspected terrorists and detainees.

Republican leaders have since demanded that Pelosi either back up those claims or apologize.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday pressed the issue.

“It’s been three weeks since I asked Speaker Pelosi to back up her allegations that the CIA lied to her or purposely misled her,” Boehner said at his weekly press conference. “Allowing this to hang out there is unconscionable. And I just think the silence from Speaker Pelosi is deafening.”

On Thursday Pelosi was asked if she was still receiving intelligence briefings.

“I’ve said what I’m going to say on that subject,” she immediately replied.

Before the reporter could repeat the question, Pelosi answered, “Yes I am. Yes I am.”

As part of their line of attack, Republicans have called not just for open hearings on interrogations, but for an inquiry in which Pelosi would testify about what she was told by the CIA, as well as for the release of still-classified documents they say will back up their claims that waterboarding and other methods have yielded valuable intelligence.

“We’ve asked for hearings,” Hoekstra said. “Clearly the chairman and I are of different thinking on this. But I think a whole lot of questions would be answered if those materials would be released.”

Reyes contended that the committee is acting appropriately.

“We want to know everything there is to know about interrogation, wherever that leads us,” Reyes said. “This was just the first hearing.”

“They can talk all they want and they can continue to make a political issue out of it,” he said of Republicans. “We will continue to do our work.”


View Larger Map


Sources: The Hill, Huffington Post, Day Life, Wikipedia, Google Maps

WTF?? Cheney Was In Charge of Interrogation Briefing Hearings For Congressional Members?

Washington Post----

Former vice president Richard B. Cheney personally oversaw at least four briefings with senior members of Congress about the controversial interrogation program, part of a secretive and forceful defense he mounted throughout 2005 in an effort to maintain support for the harsh techniques used on detainees.

The Cheney-led briefings came at some of the most critical moments for the program, as congressional oversight committees were threatening to investigate or even terminate the techniques, according to lawmakers, congressional officials, and current and former intelligence officials.

Cheney's role in helping handle intelligence issues in the Bush administration -- particularly his advocacy for the use of aggressive methods and warrantless wiretapping against alleged terrorists -- has been well documented. But his hands-on role in defending the interrogation program to lawmakers has not been previously publicized.

The CIA made no mention of his role in documents delivered to Capitol Hill last month that listed every lawmaker who had been briefed on "enhanced interrogation techniques" since 2002. For meetings that were overseen by Cheney, the agency told the intelligence committees that information about who oversaw those briefings was "not available."

The revelations do not shed light on whether top Democrats, as Republicans contend, were aware that waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning, was being used on terrorism suspects as early as the fall of 2002. That discussion has dominated Capitol Hill since last month, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who was not present at any of the briefings that included Cheney, accused the agency of intentionally misleading her in a 2002 briefing about the use of waterboarding.

An official who witnessed one of Cheney's briefing sessions with lawmakers said the vice president's presence appeared calculated to give additional heft to the CIA's case for maintaining the program. Cheney left it to the professional briefers to outline the interrogation practices, while he mounted an impassioned defense of the program.

"This is a really important issue for the security of the United States," the official recalled Cheney saying.

The CIA declined to comment on why Cheney's presence in some meetings was left out of the records. One senior intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the identities of individual briefers are intentionally concealed in all cases -- their names do not appear in any of the CIA documents that describe congressional briefings. In at least some cases, he added, the identity of the briefer was never recorded in the agency's internal records.

For all but seven of the 40 meetings listed, however, the documents outlined which agency led the briefing and which provided support. And on at least five occasions, they spelled out that then-CIA Director Michael V. Hayden led the classified meetings.

Since leaving office in January, Cheney has mounted a vigorous public defense of the interrogation practices. Speaking at the National Press Club on Monday, he said CIA officials approached the White House in 2002 with the request to use harsher techniques such as waterboarding.

"We all approved it. I'm a strong believer in it. I think it was the right thing to do," said Cheney, who is now pushing for the declassification of the information gained from the detainees who were subjected to the most brutal techniques.

Several members of Congress who took part in the Cheney meetings declined to comment on them, citing secrecy concerns. But there was little doubt that he was leading the charge on the issue.

"His office was ground zero. It was his office you dealt with at the end of the day," recalled Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who jousted with Cheney over the system of interrogations.

One of the most critical Cheney-led briefings came in late October 2005, when the vice president and Porter J. Goss, then director of the CIA, read Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) into the program on the interrogation methods, according to congressional and intelligence sources.

One knowledgeable official described the meeting as contentious. Cheney and Goss, with other CIA officials present, tried to persuade the former Vietnam POW to back off an anti-torture amendment that had already won the support of 90 senators.

The McCain amendment would have ended practices such as waterboarding by forbidding "cruel, degrading and inhumane" treatment of detainees. The CIA had not used waterboarding since 2003, but the White House sought to maintain the ability to employ it.

In the meetings with lawmakers, Cheney was adamant that the enhanced interrogations were needed to preserve national security, according to two participants. He advocated briefing more lawmakers about the program, against the wishes of National Security Council officials who sought to inform only the top members of the intelligence committees.

Lawmakers at times challenged Cheney and CIA officials about the legality of the program and pressed for specific results that would show whether the techniques worked. In response, the CIA briefers said that half of the agency's knowledge about al-Qaeda's plans and structure had been obtained through the interrogations.

Before the McCain briefing, Cheney met with a friendlier audience, his longtime friends Sens. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) and Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who oversaw the Pentagon's annual spending bill, to which the McCain amendment was attached. Cochran said yesterday that it was the first time he had been given a full description of what waterboarding entailed.

"I found the conversation with the vice president to be very candid, straightforward, helpful," Cochran said.

CIA records indicate that another briefing -- for which the briefer's name is "not available" -- was given to Senate GOP leaders on Nov. 1, 2005. That was the same day Cheney made a regular appearance at the weekly Tuesday luncheon for Senate Republicans. Cheney usually engaged only in brief, quiet asides with senators at the lunches. But at this meeting -- the day before The Washington Post published a detailed account of the CIA's secret overseas prison system -- Cheney rose to speak, and the room was cleared of all staff.

He discussed the value of the interrogation program and the information gleaned by using the harsh techniques, according to numerous contemporaneous media accounts.

Cheney's briefings on interrogations began in the winter of 2005 as the top Democrats on the Senate and House intelligence committees, Sen. John D. Rockefeller III (W.Va.) and Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), publicly advocated a full-scale investigation of the tactics used against top al-Qaeda suspects.

On March 8, 2005 -- two days after a detailed report in the New York Times about interrogations -- Cheney gathered Rockefeller, Harman and the chairmen of the intelligence panels, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), according to current and former intelligence officials. Weeks earlier, Roberts had given public statements suggesting possible support for the investigation sought by Rockefeller. But by early March 2005, Roberts announced that he opposed a separate probe, and the matter soon died.

Cheney's efforts to sway Congress toward supporting waterboarding went beyond secret meetings in Washington. In July 2005, he sent David S. Addington, his chief counsel at the time, to travel with five senators -- four of them opponents of the CIA interrogation methods -- to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. On the trip, Sen. Graham urged Addington to put the interrogations at secret prisons and the use of military tribunals into a stronger constitutional position by pushing legislation through Congress, rather than relying on executive orders and secret rulings from Justice Department lawyers.

Subsequent court rulings would challenge the legality of the system, and Justice Department lawyers were privately drafting new rules on interrogations. Addington dismissed the views of Graham, who had been a military lawyer.

"I've got all the authority I need right here," Addington said, pulling from his coat a pocket-size copy of the Constitution, according to the senator, suggesting there was no doubt about the system's legal footing.

Sources: Washington Post, Huffington Post, Day Life, Politico