Kenneth P. Vogel @ Politico on our profane rulers.

Note: This is an amended version of this blog entry.

What do you think of when I say the name Charlie Sheen? What I usually think of is an actor who was great in his small role in the fantastic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,

I also think of a spoiled actor who’s had more than his share of sex related scandals, which makes me think he’s probably not the kind of person I’d like to know. And I think of a guy who’s on what I consider a sorta, less than well-written sitcom (no offense, Chuck Lorre).

But then my husband showed me the transcript of a hypothetical conversation Charlie had with President Obama. And I had all new respect for him.

Whatever you think about Charlie Sheen I think you’ll find this very very interesting. He has done an immense amount of research, has clearly given thought to every possible argument against his position, he is meticulous, calm and rational. This is no hot headed playboy. Of course, he doesn’t actually meet the opposition in this script because, as his disclaimer at the end states, What you have just read didn’t actually happen… yet.

I first read this script without the disclaimer and believed it to be real, as I posted in the first version of this very blog. But thanks to Gerry, Ben (who sent me the link to the full PDF of this script – see link below and in Ben’s comment) and Conor, the full truth is available here.

Full PDF of Charlie Sheen’s script

Regardless of what you believe about the topic of 9/11, this is a great read and I not only hope that Charlie gets to have this conversation with the President, but that he’s met with a more open mind.

By no means did I intend to write a political blog 2 weeks in a row, but then I read this and I thought it was too incredible to pass up. What are the odds of a TV star like Charlie Sheen turning into a one man Woodward and Bernstein?  Let me know what you think.

Script, “Twenty Minutes With the President”

Charlie Sheen — Good afternoon Mr. President, thank you so much for taking time out of your demanding schedule.

President Barack Obama — My pleasure, the content of your request seemed like something I should carve out a few minutes for.

CS — I should point out that I voted for you, as your promises of hope and change, transparency and accountability, as well as putting government back into the hands of the American people, struck an emotional chord in me that I hadn’t felt in quite some time, perhaps ever.

PBO — And I appreciate that Charlie. Big fan of the show, by the way.

CS — Sir, I can’t imagine when you might find the time to actually watch my show given the measure of what you inherited.

PBO — I have it Tivo’d on Air Force One. Nice break from the traveling press corps. (He glances at his watch) not to be abrupt or to rush you, but you have 19 minutes left.

CS — I’ll take that as an invitation to cut to the chase.

PBO — I’m all ears. Or so I’ve been told.

CS - Sir, in the very near future we will be experiencing our first 9/11 anniversary with you as Commander in Chief.

PBO — Yes. A very solemn day for our Nation. A day of reflection and yet a day of historical consciousness as well.

CS — Very much so sir, very much so indeed…. Now; In researching your position regarding the events of 9/11 and the subsequent investigation that followed, am I correct to understand that you fully support and endorse the findings of the commission report otherwise known as the ‘official story’?

PBO — Do I have any reason not to? Given that most of us are presumably in touch with similar evidence.

CS — I really wish that were the case, sir. Are you aware, Mr. President, of the recent stunning revelations that sixty percent of the 9/11 commissioners have publicly stated that the government agreed not to tell the truth about 9/11 and that the Pentagon was engaged in deliberate deception about their response to the attack?

PBO — I am aware of certain “in fighting” during the course of their very thorough and tireless investigative process.

CS — Mr. President, it’s hard to label this type of friction as “in fighting” or make the irresponsible leap to “thorough,” when the evidence I insist you examine regarding 6 of the 10 members are statements of fact.

(At this point one of Obama’s senior aides approaches the President and whispers into his ear. Obama glances quickly at his watch and nods as the aide resumes his post at the doorway, directly behind me.)

PBO — No disrespect Mr. Sheen, but I have to ask; what is it that you seem to be implying with the initial direction of this discussion?

CS — I am not implying anything Mr. President. I am here to present the facts and see what you plan to do with them.

PBO – Let me guess; your ‘facts,’ allegedly supporting these claims are in the folders you brought with you?

CS — Good guess Mr. President.

(I hand the first folder of documents to the President)

CS — Again sir, these are not my opinions or assumptions, this is all a matter of public record, reported through mainstream media, painstakingly fact checked and verified.

(the President glances into the folder I handed him)

CS — You’ll notice sir on page one of the dossier dated August of ‘06 from the Washington Post, the statements of John Farmer, senior council to the 9/11 commission, his quote stating, “I was shocked how different the truth was from the way it was described.”

PBO — (as he glances down at the report, almost inaudible) …. um hmm….

CS — He goes on to further state “The [NORAD Air Defense] tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years….”

(the President continues to view the documents)

Charlie Sheen writing 20 Minutes with the President. Photo by Alex Jones.

CS — On pages two and three, sir, are the statements, as well, from commission co-chairmen Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, commissioners Bob Kerrey, Timothy Roemer and John Lehman, as well as the statements of commissioner Max Cleland, an ex-Senator from Georgia , who resigned, stating:

“It is a national scandal. This investigation is now compromised. One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9/11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up.”

He also described President Bush’s desire to delay the process as not to damage the ‘04 re-election bid. They suspected deception to the point where they considered referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation. Mr. President, this information alone is unequivocally grounds for a new investigation!

PBO — Mistakes were clearly made but we as a people and as a country need to move forward. It is obviously in our best interest as a democratic society to focus our efforts and our resources on the future of this great nation and our ability to protect the American people and our allies from this type of terrorism in the coming years.

CS — Sir, how can we focus on the future when THE COMMISSION ITSELF is on record stating that they still do not know the truth??

PBO — Even if what you state, might in some capacity, begin to approach an open discussion or balanced debate, I can’t speak for, or about the decisions certain commission members made during an extremely difficult period. Perhaps you should be interviewing them instead of me. Wait, don’t tell me; I was easier to track down than they were?

CS – Not exactly sir, but let’s be honest. You’re the President of the United States, the leader of the free world, the buck stops with you. 9/11 has been the pretext for the systematic dismantling of our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Your administration is reading from the same playbook that the Bush administration foisted on America through documented secrecy and deception.

PBO — Mr. Sheen, I’m having a difficult time sitting here and listening to you draw distorted parallels between the Bush/Cheney regime and mine.

CS — Mr. President the parallels are not distorted just because you say they are. Let’s stick to the facts. You promised to abolish the Patriot Act and then voted to re-authorize it. You pledged to end warrantless wire tapping against the American people and now energetically defend it. You decried the practice of rendition and now continue it. You promised over and over again on the campaign trail, that you would end the practice of indefinite detention and instead, you have expanded it to permanent detention of “detainees” without trial. This far exceeds the outrages of the former administration. Call me crazy Mr. President, but is this not your record?

PBO — Mr. Sheen, my staff and I authorized this interview based on your request to discuss 9/11 and deliver some additional information you’re convinced I’d not previously reviewed. Call me crazy, But it appears as though you’ve blindly wandered off topic.

CS — Sir, the examples I just illustrated are a direct result of 9/11.

PBO — And I’m telling you that we must move forward, we must endure through these dangerous and politically challenging years ahead.

CS — Mr. President, we cannot move forward with a bottomless warren of unanswered questions surrounding that day and its aftermath.

PBO — I read the official report. Every word every page. Perhaps you should do the same.

CS — I have sir, and so have thousands of family members of the victims, and guess what; they have the same questions I do and probably a lot more. I didn’t lose a loved one on that horrific day Mr. President and neither did you. But since then I, along with millions of other Americans lost something we held true and dear for most of our lives in this great country of ours; we lost our hope.

PBO — And I’d like to believe that I am here to restore that hope. To restore confidence in your leaders, in the system that the voting public chose through a peaceful transfer of power.

(An odd moment of silence between us. Precious time ticking away).

CS — Mr. President, are you aware of the number of days it took to begin the investigation into JFK’s assassination?

PBO — If memory serves I believe it was two weeks.

CS — Close. Seventeen days to be exact. Are you aware sir, how long it took to begin the investigation into Pearl Harbor?

PBO — I would say again about….two weeks.

CS — Close again sir, eleven days to be exact. Are you aware Mr. President how long it took to begin the investigation into 9/11?

PBO — I know it must have seemed like a very long time for all the grieving families.

CS — It was a very long time Mr. President – four hundred and forty days. Roughly 14 months. Does it bother you Mr. President that it only took FIVE HOURS for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld after the initial attack to recommend and endorse a full scale offensive against Iraq?

PBO — I am not aware of any such purported claim.

CS — I have the proof Mr. President, along with scores of documents and facts I’d like you to take a look at. Here.

(I hand him another file — much thicker than the first)

PBO — I see you came prepared Charlie.

CS — No other way to show up Mr. President. When in doubt over prepare I always say.

PBO — Now you sound like the First Lady.

CS — That’s quite a compliment sir.

PBO — As you wish. Please continue.

CS — Sir, I’d like to direct your attention to the stack of documents in the folder I just handed you. The first in from the top is entitled “Operation Northwoods”, a declassified Pentagon plan to stage terror attacks on US soil, to be blamed on Cuba as a pretext for war.

PBO — And I’d like to direct your attention to the fact that the principle draftsman of this improbable blueprint was quickly denied a second term as Joint Chiefs chairman and sent packing to a European NATO garrison. Thank God his otherworldly ambitions never saw the light of day.

CS — I wouldn’t be so certain about that Mr. President.

PBO — I could easily say the same to you Charlie.

(the President checks his watch)

CS — The next document reads “Declassified staged provocations.” Now, Honestly Mr. President I wish I was making this stuff up. I’m certain you are familiar with the USS Maine Incident, the sinking of the Lusitania, which we all now know brought us into WW1, and of course the most famous, the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

PBO — Of course I am familiar with these historical events and I’m aware that there’s a measure of controversy surrounding them. But to be quite frank with you, this is all ancient history.

CS — Mr. President, it has been often said; “Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.” And I concede to you sir, these events are the past.

PBO — A vastly different world young man, shouldering a radically disparate state of universal affairs.

CS — No argument sir, I‘m merely inviting you to acknowledge some credibility to the pattern or the theme. Case in point; the next document in your folder. It was published by the think-tank, Project For a New American Century and it’s entitled “Rebuilding Americas Defenses”, and was written by Dick Cheney and Jeb Bush. To quote from the document sir — (the President interrupts)

PBO — “Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”

CS — Touché, sir. Your thoughts on this statement Mr. President?

PBO — I would call this a blatant case of misjudgment fueled by an unfortunate milieu of assumption. For some, the uninformed denial of coincidence.

CS — Interesting angle sir. Nevertheless, Vice President Cheney didn’t stop there. In early 2008, Pulitzer prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh and MSNBC, both reported that Cheney had proposed to the Pentagon an outrageous plan to have the U.S. Navy create fake Iranian patrol boats, to be manned by Navy Seals, who would then stage an attack on US destroyers in the Strait of Hormuz. This event was to be blamed on Iran and used as a pretext for war. Does any of this information worry you Mr. President? Should we just ignore it, until these realities can be dismissed years from now by our children, as ancient history as well?

PBO — Of course this information worries me, yet it’s not nearly as worrisome as you sitting here today suspiciously implying that 9/11 was somehow allowed to happen or even orchestrated from the inside.

CS — Mr. President I am not suspiciously implying anything. I am merely exposing the documents and asking the questions that nobody in power will even look at or acknowledge. And as I stated earlier, I voted for you, I believed in your message of hope and change. Mr. President I have come to you specifically hoping for a change. A change in the perception that our government has not yet made itself open and accountable to the people. These are your words Mr. President not mine. The lives of thousands were brutally cut short and those left behind to suffer their infinite pain are with me today Mr. President. They are with me in spirit and flesh, and the message we carry will not be silenced anymore by media fueled mantras insisting how they are supposed to feel. Deciding for them, for 8 long years, what can be thought, what can be said, what can be asked.

PBO — And I appreciate your passion, I appreciate your conviction. In spite of your concerns, in spite of what your data might or might not reveal, what you and the families must understand and accept is that we are doing everything we can to protect you.

CS — Mr. President , I realize were very short on time, so please allow me to run down a list of bullet points that might illuminate some reasons why we don’t embrace the warm hug of Federal protection.

PBO — We’ve come this far. Fire away.

CS — Please keep in mind Mr. President everything I’m about to say is documented as fact and part of the public record. The information you are holding in your hands chronicles and verifies each and every point.

PBO — You have five minutes left. The floor is yours. Brief me.

CS — Thank you Mr. President. Okay, first; On the FBI’s most wanted list Osama Bin Laden is not charged with the crimes of 911. When I called the FBI to ask them why this was the case, they replied: “There’s not enough evidence to link Bin Laden to the crime scene,” I later discovered he had never even been indicted by the D.O.J.

CS — Number 2; FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, was dismissed and gagged by the D.O.J. after she revealed that the government had foreknowledge of plans to attack American cities using planes as bombs as early as April 2001. In July of ‘09, Mrs. Edmonds broke the Federal gag order and went public to reveal that Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban were all working for and with the C.I.A. up until the day of 9/11.

CS — Number 3; The following is a quote from Mayor Giuliani during an interview on 9/11 with Peter Jennings for ABC News. “I went down to the scene and we set up headquarters at 75 Barkley Street, which was right there with the Police Commissioner, the Fire Commissioner, the Head of Emergency Management, and we were operating out of there when we were told that the World Trade Center was going to collapse. And it did collapse before we could actually get out of the building, so we were trapped in the building for 10, 15 minutes, and finally found an exit and got out, walked north, and took a lot of people with us.”

WHO TOLD HIM THIS??? To this day, the answer to this question remains unanswered, completely ignored and emphatically DENIED by Mayor Giuliani on several public occasions.

CS — Number 4; In April 2004, USA Today reported, “In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conducted exercises simulating what the White House says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties.” One of the targets was the World Trade Center.

CS — Number 5; On September 12th 2007, CNN’s ‘Anderson Cooper 360’, reported that the mysterious “white plane” spotted and videotaped by multiple media outlets, flying in restricted airspace over the White House shortly before 10am on the morning of 9/11, was in fact the Air Force’s E-4B, a specially modified Boeing 747 with a communications pod behind the cockpit; otherwise known as “The Doomsday Plane”.

Though fully aware of the event, the 9/11 Commission did not deem the appearance of the military plane to be of any interest and did not include it in the final 9/11 Commission report.

CS — Number 6; Three F-16s assigned to Andrews Air Force Base, ten miles from Washington, DC, are conducting training exercises in North Carolina 207 miles away as the first plane crashes into the WTC. Even at significantly less than their top speed of 1500 mph, they could still have defended the skies over Washington well before 9am, more than 37 minutes before Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon, however, they did not return until after 9:55am.

Andrews AFB had no armed fighters on alert and ready to take off on the morning of 9/11.

CS — Number 7; WTC Building 7. Watch the video of its collapse.

CS — Number 8; Flight 93 is fourth plane to crash on 9/11 at 10:03am. V.P. Cheney only gives shoot down order at 10:10-10:20am and this is not communicated to NORAD until 28 minutes after Flight 93 has crashed.

Fueling further suspicion on this front is the fact that three months before the attacks of 9/11, Dick Cheney usurped control of NORAD, and therefore he, and no one else on planet Earth, had the power to call for military sorties on the hijacked airliners on 9/11. He did not exercise that power. Three months after 9/11, he relinquished command of NORAD and returned it to military operation.

CS — Number 9; Scores of main stream news outlets reported that the F.B.I. conducted an investigation of at least FIVE of the 9/11 hijackers being trained at U.S. military flight schools. Those investigations are now sealed and need to be declassified.

CS — Number 10; In 2004, New York firefighters Mike Bellone and Nicholas DeMasi went public to say they had found the black boxes at the World Trade Center, but were told to keep their mouths shut by FBI agents. Nicholas DeMasi said that he escorted federal agents on an all-terrain vehicle in October 2001 and helped them locate the devices, a story backed up by rescue volunteer Mike Bellone.

As the Philadelphia Daily News reported at the time, “Their story raises the question of whether there was a some type of cover-up at Ground Zero.”

CS — Number 11 – Hundreds of eye witnesses including first responders, fire captains, news reporters, and police, all described multiple explosions in both towers before and during the collapse.

CS — Number 12; An astounding video uncovered from the archives shows BBC News correspondent Jane Standley reporting on the collapse of WTC Building 7 over twenty minutes before it fell at 5:20pm on the afternoon of 9/11. Tapes from earlier BBC broadcasts show news anchors discussing the collapse of WTC 7 a full 26 minutes in advance. The BBC at first claimed that their tapes from 9/11 had been “lost” before admitting that they made the “error” of reporting the collapse of WTC 7 before it happened without adequately explaining how they could have obtained advance knowledge of the event.

In addition, over an hour before the collapse of WTC 7, at 4:10pm, CNN’s Aaron Brown reported that the building “has either collapsed, or is collapsing.”

CS — Number 13; Solicitor General Ted Olson’s claim that his wife Barbara Olsen called him twice from Flight 77, describing hijackers with box cutters, was a central plank of the official 9/11 story.

However, the credibility of the story was completely undermined after Olsen kept changing his story about whether his wife used her cell phone or the airplane phone. The technology to enable cell phone calls from high-altitude airline flights was not created until 2004. American Airlines confirmed that Flight 77 was a Boeing 757 and that this plane did not have airplane phones on board.

According to the FBI, Barbara Olsen attempted to call her husband only once and the call failed to connect, therefore Olsen must have been lying when he claimed he had spoken to his wife from Flight 77.

CS — Number 14; The size of a Boeing 757 is approximately 125ft in width and yet images of the impact zone at the Pentagon supposedly caused by the crash merely show a hole no more than 16ft in diameter. The engines of the 757 would have punctured a hole bigger than this, never mind the whole plane. Images before the partial collapse of the impact zone show little real impact damage and a sparse debris field completely inconsistent with the crash of a large jetliner, especially when contrasted with other images showing airplane crashes into buildings.

CS — Number 15; What is the meaning behind the following quote attributed to Dick Cheney which came to light during the 9/11 Commission hearings? The passage is taken from testimony given by then Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta.

During the time that the airplane was coming in to the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President, “The plane is 50 miles out.” “The plane is 30 miles out.” And when it got down to “the plane is 10 miles out,” the young man also said to the Vice President, “Do the orders still stand?” And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said, “Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?”

As the plane was not shot down, in addition to the fact that armed fighter jets were nowhere near the plane and the Pentagon defensive system was not activated, are we to take it that the orders were to let the plane find its target?

CS — Number 16; In May 2003, the Miami Herald reported how the Bush administration was refusing to release a 900-page congressional report on 9/11 because it wanted to “avoid enshrining embarrassing details in the report,” particularly regarding pre-9/11 warnings as well as the fact that the hijackers were trained at U.S. flight schools.

CS — Number 17; Top Pentagon officials cancelled their scheduled flights for September 11^th on September 10^th. San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, following a security warning, cancelled a flight into New York that was scheduled for the morning of 9/11.

CS — Number 18; The technology to enable cell phone calls from high-altitude airline flights was not created until 2004, and even by that point it was only in the trial phase. Calls from cell phones which formed an integral part of the official government version of events were technologically impossible at the time.

CS — Number 19: On April 29, 2004, President Bush and V.P. Cheney would only meet with the commission under specific clandestine conditions. They insisted on testifying together and not under oath. They also demanded that their testimony be treated as a matter of “state secret.” To date, nothing they spoke of that day exists in the public domain.

CS — And finally Mr. President — Number 20; A few days after the attack, several newspapers as well as the FBI reported that a paper passport had been found in the ruins of the WTC. In August 2004, CNN reported that 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah’s visa was found in the remains of Flight 93 which went down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

At least a third of the WTC victim’s bodies were vaporized and many of the victims of the Pentagon incident were burned beyond recognition. And yet visas and paper passports which identify the perpetrators and back up the official version of events miraculously survive explosions and fires that we are told melted steel buildings.

(The Senior aide appears again beside the President whispering in his ear. He then quickly moves off).

PBO — Well Charlie I can’t say this hasn’t been interesting. As I said earlier you’ve showed up today focused and organized. Regardless how I feel about the material you’ve presented, I must commend your dedication and zeal. However, our time here is up.

(the President rises from his chair , I do the same).

CS — Mr. President! One more second!

(The President starts towards the door — I follow him quickly step for step).

CS — Mr. President, I implore you based on the evidence you now possess, to use your Executive Power. Prove to us all Sir, that you do, in fact, care. Create a truly comprehensive and open Congressional investigation of 9/11 and its aftermath. The families deserve the truth, the American people and the rest of the free world deserve the truth. Mr. President -

(He pauses. We shake hands).

CS — Make sure you’re on the right side of history.

(The President breaks the handshake).

PBO — I am on the right side of history. Thank you Charlie, my staff and I will be in touch.

(I watch as he strides gracefully out of the room, the truth I provided him held firmly by his side; in the hand of providence.)

Author’s note: What you have just read didn’t actually happen… yet.

This is an open letter ot the President requesting a new investivation.

Love affairs are notorious for being passionate, torrid, and prone to ending in horrendous crash-and-burns.

In spite of several talking heads bemoaning “softball questions” at President Obama’s every-month-and-a-half-whether-we-need-one-or-not prime time press conference, I thought at least some of the questions were surprisingly good.  The answers were vague, long on self-congratulation, full of class bating, and stuffed with unsupported ideas, but at least some of the questions were pointed and on-topic.

For once, I thought the press were actually trying to do their jobs.  (Big thank-you to Ironic Surrealism v3.0 for posting the whole transcript.)

• Back to the politics of it, you’ve mentioned two Republicans in your opening statement, but you have 60 Democratic seats, a healthy majority in the House.  (Obama: Right.)  If you don’t get this, isn’t this a fight inside the Democratic Party and that Republicans really aren’t playing a — you can’t really blame the Republicans for this one?
• You said earlier that you wanted to tell the American people what’s in it for them. How will their family benefit from the health care reform? But experts say that in addition to the benefits that you’re pushing, there is going to have to be some sacrifice in order for there to be true cost-cutting measures, such as Americans giving up tests, referrals, choice, end-of-life care.  When you describe health care reform, you don’t — understandably, you don’t talk about the sacrifices that Americans might have to make. Do you think — do you accept the premise that other than some tax increases on the wealthiest Americans, the American people are going to have to give anything up in order for this to happen?
• During the campaign, you promised that health care negotiations would take place on C-SPAN, and that hasn’t happened, and your administration recently turned down a request from a watchdog group seeking a list of health care executives who have visited the White House to talk about health care reform.  Also, the TARP inspector general recently said that your White House is withholding too much information on the bank bailout. So my question for you is, are you fulfilling your promise of transparency in the White House?
• Two questions. One, can you guarantee that this legislation will lock in and say the government will never deny any services, that that’s going to be decided by the doctor and the patient, and the government will not deny any coverage? And, secondarily, can you, as a symbolic gesture, say that you and the Congress will abide by the same benefits in that public option?
• You cited the Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinics as models for the delivery of health care in the past. The Mayo Clinic, though, has some problems with House proposals, saying they’re not focused enough on patients and on results. What do you expect to achieve tomorrow by going to the Cleveland Clinic, which hasn’t stated an opinion? And are you expecting some form of endorsement from the Cleveland Clinic?

Ok, it isn’t a complete meltdown of the “slobbering love affair” of the media with Barack Obama, but it’s a promising beginning.  Give it a bit, and it could even be worth some juicy tabloid headlines.

However, after a number of really good questions, we ended with: isn’t it awful a black professor was arrested for breaking into his own house?  Conveniently left out was the part about him initially refusing to show his ID and yelling at the police officer… and the whole thing had absolutely nothing to do with health care.  Gee, was this question chosen maybe to distract from the lack of substance in the preceding answers?

Americans are not either easily distracted!  We have great focus and atten–… HEY!  SQUIRREL!

President Obama held a town hall event in order to “sell his health care message to the public” during Congress’s July 4th recess. However, worried that the President cannot answer tough questions about his plan for health care reform, White House officials carefully screened each member of the audience in attendance and each question asked.   This time, the mainstream media took note, even grilling White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs on the choreographed spectacle.  In fact, veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas, not known as a conservative sympathizer, even lamented: “I’m not saying there has never been managed news before, but this is carried to fare-thee-well–for the town halls, for the press conferences. It’s blatant. They don’t give a d–n if you know it or not. They ought to be hanging their heads in shame.” She added: “What the h-ll do they think we are, puppets?”

The  answer Helen is “Yes!  Yes they do think you of the MSM are all puppets.  And why should they not since you were all acting as nice little dummy puppets all during the presidential campaign and up to the present moment.  And now you say, “It’s blatant. They don’t give a d–n if you know it or not.”   You are just now catching on to this fact?  Obama and his lap dogs in Congress have been laughing in your faces from day one as you treated him as  the Chosen One and some even refered to him as “a God”.  Maybe now some of  you will get back to being journalist and the watch dogs of  government.  BB

This is how a democracy ends; when the press is in bed with the leadership and all public presidential discussions are  pre staged. 

In other words people, the so called “TownHall” Meetings are not townhall at all.  Obama’s townhall meeings are pre-screened from start to finish, the reporters are pre-selected as well as the questions have been pre screened.  Mr. Obama has his Teleprompter ready with his handpicked rehearsed answers ready to woo the sheeple.

Press Secretary Grilled About “Prepackaged” Questions @ Obama’s Town Hall

Hey People, what is really funny is when Gibbs trys to bribe this reporter by telling him he can have the First Question which is usually asked by the AP.  Helen Thomas is even getting a little ticked off by the whole affair.

And why is Obma doing this???? Because he can have No Opposing Views, see a previous post on this issue.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/politics/ci_12589887

I can tell by the headline that the assessment that our government is becoming more oppressive may actually have some merit. No I’m not going to talk about FEMA “death camps,” or the “New World Order,” or some other Alex Jones created deluge. Furthermore, I’m not going to advocate buying guns. With that being said, I will first point out the one criticism I have of this article: they don’t specify, and, the Department of Defense didn’t specify whether or not these were violent protests or peaceful assemblies. Also the article did not specify how serious the Department of Defense considers these “protests” to be.

All I can say on the matter is that hopefully, with the releasing of more information on the topic, the truth will come out. If this can be calrified, it will help matters greatly.

Now time for some ridiculous conspiracy trash. This is naked aggression against the now retaliating Conservative movement; essentially they are trying to shut up the few vocal members of the movement: this is a multiple front assault including the myriad assaults on talk radio, Fox News, Rick Santelli, Jim Cramer, Glenn Beck, the TEA party movement, and others. I’m pretty certain this is a recent development as well: had the Bush administration done this, the outcry on the left would have been deafening. Moreso it would have made the front page of the New York Times: it hasn’t now, but it would have then. We seem to be in lock step, marching toward oppression; yet the press is silent.

The press corps of this nation is no longer an objective, skeptical observer; thereby in no way is this journalism. I’ve probably said this once before: the New York Times should call themselves “a journal of opinion.” It’s perfect insofar as it completely describes what the New York Times has become.  In conclusion, this is further proof of the media’s left wing bias. They are to the democratic party what Pravda was to the Bolsheviks. How much more proof do we need?

To put it frankly: the majority of US news outlets are very much like Pravda to the Democratic Party and the Obama White House; they will get behind just about everything and anything the administration champions. Lately they have taken a new position to complement their brown nosing: the president’s very own black shirts. The black shirts were Mussolini’s thugs who marched on Rome with him in I think it was 1922 [I could be wrong here, but that was when Mussolini was put in power anyway - this was done with the help of the black shirts anyway].

Whenever criticism of this administration has arisen, they take high offense to it, all of it is of course spearheaded by the White House and promoted by Robert Gibbs (the White House Press secretary). In short, the press is not free: either you are on a short leash, tethered to the Obama administration, or you are outcast as a “fear monger”, “hate monger” or some other title which is bestowed upon the administration’s enemies. Victims of this abuse have been Rush Limbaugh (James Carville said what he said after 9/11: where was the out cry then), Rick Santelli, Glenn Beck (although he has yet to be mentioned by name), the T.E.A. Party movement, and now the English press (more specifically, the daily telegraph).  The only thing they’ve done [that I can recall] is criticize, or disagree with the Obama White House.

Apparently when Obama was touted as “a president to bring us all together” (or something like that), it was code for “a president to hurt all those who disagree with him, or criticize him modelled after Vladimir Putin, Fidel Castro, and Benito Mussolini”.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/nile_gardiner/blog/2009/05/29/robert_gibbs_should_apologise_to_the_british_press_for_his_sneering_rant

Here’s the link to the angered English Press. We’re insulting one of our longest standing allies repetitively, how nice, how smart (if you can’t see the sarcasm here, I can’t help you).

Two months ago, Mary Ann Akers at the Washington Post wrote a story about White House press credentials.  It was an amusing take on something no one should be amused about – ‘correspondents’, or rather sham reporters, wandering the halls of the White House at a threatening proximity to the President of the United States. Not to say they have a monthly upkeep of Presidential food treats.  

It seems they’re still kicking around.  Who in the world is that reporter squealing and screaming at the back?

The Heritage Foundation is my favorite think tank, just like the Investors Business Daily podcast is my favorite podcast.  These two news sources are heads and shoulders over anything else. Except for Commenter ECM, but that goes without saying.

Let’s see what they have for us today!

First, let’s get an answer to the question of who cut spending more, Bush (in his last year budget) or Obama (in his first budget)?

The graphic, from Keith Hennesey, tells all:

Who cut spending more? Bush or Obama?

Oh, that reminds me of a video I saw on the Maritime Sentry of the lovely Michele Bachmann trying desperately to persuade the silly people in Congress not to give more money to organizations like ACORN who are facing charges of voter fraud. But there’s only one Michele and so many other unqualified people.

Well, let’s see her speak anyway:

She’s addressing Barney Frank, who is one of the people responsible for the recession in my opinion.

I don’t know why they won’t listen to her and do what she wants. When I see Michele speaking, I just want to give her whatever she wants. She seems so passionate, moral and competent, much more so than the other people who haven’t actually run a business or home-schooled 5 children and 23 foster children.

Representative Michele Bachmann

She had a post on her blog about her amendment to block giving money to ACORN, too.

Excerpt:

On Monday of this week, charges were brought in Nevada against ACORN and two of its former employees for voter registration violations, and  today, the Allegheny County District Attorney in Pennsylvania charged seven employees of ACORN with forgery and election law violations, saying they filed hundreds of fraudulent voter registrations during last year’s general election.

It really could not be more timely as Chairman Barney Frank was just on the House floor trying to justify his amendment to the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act that will allow groups such as ACORN that have been indicted, or have employees who have been indicted, of voter fraud to receive millions in taxpayer funding.

Last week, the House Financial Services Committee unanimously passed my amendment to prohibit the flow of your money to such groups, but Chairman Frank feels it necessary to take back his support for that commonsense language and raise the bar so that organizations would have to be convicted before their access to tax dollars would be cut off.

While I realize that we are all innocent until proven guilty, ACORN has established a pattern of voter registration violations that seems to pop up election after election and in state after state.  The courts are the appropriate place to try guilt and innocence.  Congress has a fiduciary obligation to spend tax dollars wisely.

Your taxpayer money must be held to the highest standard, and not used to engage in a proven pattern of voter registration violations.

Here’s another story from the Heritage Foundation about Obama’s interventions into the free market. The more he meddles, the fewer people will want to run businesses in the USA, and the more unemployment there will be. You’ll remember that Obama tried to force the banks to stiff creditors for pennies on the dollar, while giving his union supporters a much better bankruptcy deal than they deserved.

“…I am indeed fearful writing this. It’s really a bad idea to speak out. Angering the President is a mistake…” What country would you expect to hear a citizen make this statement? Venezuela? Cuba? Russia? Nope, those are the words of prominent hedge fund manager Clifford Asness, who wrote a now-famous and widely circulated open letter this week describing the intimidation techniques used by President Obama and his administration.

Why did the President have to resort to such enhanced techniques of intimidation? Mainly because he was asking financial lenders to engage in the same unscrupulous acts his administration has been engaging in since January, i.e. picking winners and losers without concern for free market principles. The President wanted hedge funds to force a loss on investment onto their unknowing clients, so he could reward supportive union bosses in a “controlled” (i.e. Obama controlled) bankruptcy.

The rest of the post documents the ways in which government intervention and intimidation of private business hurts the economy. And they summarize Tom Lauria’s testimony that I blogged about before:

Tom Lauria, a prominent bankruptcy judge, and Democratic Party contributor, recently told WJR in Detroit: “One of my clients was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under threat that the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight.” Certainly the White House press corps considers themselves independent of any revenge scheme the President may cook up, but then why has their silence on these issues been so loud?

And here is the big picture lesson:

While the left and the right can agree to disagree on certain matters of this bailout, every American should be on one side of this intimidation debate, against what Michael Barone labeled “Gangster Government“. Whether trying to strong arm the dissolution of a company to benefit its union bosses, or trying to use selective declassification of national security memos to prove a policy point, the White House needs to be held to the highest (not higher) standard. The best way to end this cycle of government intimidation is to get government out of these businesses to begin with. Without an end, there shall be no means.

Attack the free market and you attack all of our liberties, especially our precious freedom of religious expression. If I cannot earn an income and make purchases without government approval, then I am not free. We have to keep talking about this story until Obama understands.

My next story is from Victor Davis Hanson, writing in Investor’s Business Daily. He makes the case that America is strong, secure and prosperous for specific reasons. Mess with the design of the country and we will lose our liberty, security and prosperity.

His first example is environmental regulation in California:

Now in California — the nation’s richest farm state — the population is skyrocketing toward 40 million. Yet hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland this year are going out of production, and with them thousands of jobs.

Why? In times of chronic water shortages, environmentalists have sued to stop irrigation deliveries in order to save threatened two-inch-long delta fish that need infusions of fresh water diverted from agricultural use. And for environmental and financial reasons, we long ago stopped building canals and dams in the Sierra Nevada to find sources of replacement irrigation water.

And what about domestic energy production?

Developing such traditional sources of energy responsibly would save us trillions of dollars in imported fuels, keep jobs at home and allow the nation a precious window of energy autonomy as we steadily transfer to more wind, solar and renewable energy.

If we exploit our own energy carefully offshore and in Alaska, it will mean less sloppy foreign drilling off places like Nigeria or in the fragile Russian tundra to feed American cars and trucks.

And what about being able to project military power abroad?

Democrats and Republicans have also taken for granted having enough military power to intervene overseas to remove tyrants like Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, Manuel Noriega and the Taliban — and to stop atrocities whenever we can. But such power takes hundreds of billions of dollars in expensive hardware and military personnel.

He also wants to keep the defense budget static, or even cut it in some places.

In our have-it-both-ways generation, we want to keep our involvements abroad while not worrying as much about the practical means to meet them.

And his last example, massive deficits… and expanded entitlement programs?

Then there is the question of national debt. We are projected to run a record $1.7 trillion deficit — and may add $9 trillion to our existing $11 trillion in aggregate debt over the next eight years.

Meanwhile, the president has outlined vast new entitlement programs in health care, education, environmental programs and infrastructure.

It’s like we think that the USA is a magic place that will somehow keep running smoothly if we stop believing everything that got us the top spot in the first place. Shouldn’t we send Obama to North Korea or something where his policies might actually be welcomed? Democrats can’t handle any of these issues. Let’s put Michele Bachmann in charge in 2012.

Is the Obama Administration making threats? OF COURSE They are, it is that mobster mentality…you know it is just so hard to supress.

Didn’t your mother tell you?… “you cannot change the spots on a leopard…” (You will NEVER change Obma’s spots…)

Update: NOW OF COURSE THEY ARE THREATENING GM, IMAGINE THAT!

“Lauria: Let me tell you it’s no fun standing on this side of the fence opposing the President of the United States. In fact, let me just say, people have asked me who I represent. That’s a moving target. I can tell you for sure that I represent one less investor today than I represented yesterday.

One of my clients was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under the threat that the full force of the White House Press Corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight. That’s how hard it is to stand on this side of the fence.

Beckman: Was that Perella Weinberg?

Lauria: That was Perella Weinberg.”

I guess you can take the kid out of the ghetto but you can’t take the ghetto out of the kid; even if you stick him in the white house….Imagine that.

Used by permission:
http://mainfo.blogspot.com/2009/05/white-house-directly-threatened-my.html

For a politics geek who hopes to cover American politics one day, the White House Correspondents Weekend Insider website is a treasure trove of useful information and behind the scenes gossip.

For example, I knew the White House briefing room has a swimming pool beneath it but I didn’t know that it used to be the White House laundry! It’s kind of appropriate, don’t you think?

The site is also producing some interesting videos, like the one below featuring Jake Tapper of ABC News and Julie Mason of the Examiner.

If you are watching the Gibbs daily briefing as I am now, you will be cringing as I cringe, with many issues going unquestioned, as mother-hen questions cascade all aimed at trying to link the President to Swine Flu in the context of his Mexican trip. I honestly do not know if any past press group has manifested this degree of silliness. When Gibbs does not know something, how many times does he have to say so, particularly when what he does not know is the answer to a highly speculative question designed to create fear for the President’s health.

We truly live at some watershed in the future of journalism. I am not sure whether it is an IQ problem. Or some vibe that no one can quite grasp or comprehend.

LATER:

Now Mayor Bloomberg and Senator Schumer and news commentators are joining the squawking chorus — this time over a fly over which was announced in advance but which they claim authorities were asked to keep under wraps. That last is unconfirmed. Maybe we are in a marvellous emperors’ clothes moment. Fortunately I possess a vote in NY and I will not vote for mother hen opportunists. That would include the Mayor and the Senator.

Bill Moyers recently interviewed two progressive journalists, Glenn Greenwald and Jay Rosen, who are counting Obama’s first days in D.C. with a sharp eye on the political opinion makers who drive so much of the story we all consume. Listen to the full show.

Greenwald suggested that the media’s treatment of the Daschle nomination provides an example of how complicitly it perpetuates business-as-usual conduct in Washington D.C.. The media missed the real story. While it focused on Daschle’s tax problems, it said nothing of how the retired Congressman has capitalized on his former office by providing legislative consulting to wealthy individuals and large corporations, including those in the health care industry.

“Most people consider that to be corruption. That’s what Barack Obama called it when he ran,” said Greenwald. “Yet, to members of the media, who have spent their lives in Washington, who are friends and colleagues of the people who are engorging themselves on this corrupt system, that is just the way of life. It’s like breathing air or drinking water.”

Rosen said that the Washington media players are part of a broken system intent upon keeping themselves relevant in order to maintain a career. “I think there’s a tendency for Washington journalists to see everything converging towards the political game that they are themselves masters of…The reason you won’t see an Amy Goodman of “Democracy Now!” on “Meet the Press” is that it would discredit the narrative that’s been building up for a long time.”

Rosen conjectures that Obama was probably a little surprised at the strength of the symbiotic relationship between political opinion makers and the political elite. “He is naturally a compromiser. And I think he’s going to be pulled between playing a savvy inside game and trying to mobilize anger from outside of Washington. He’s going to seesaw between these two things. “

“To members of the media, who have spent their lives in Washington, who are friends and colleagues of the people who are engorging themselves on this corrupt system, that is just the way of life. It’s like breathing air or drinking water. “

Both journalists optimistically agree that if Obama can hold fast to his early promises, the press corps will eventually adjust its narrative to embrace a more progressive story. However, Obama will not be able to do that without outside force. Citizen journalism and other internet social networks can shame the press corps into changing.

Here’s the complete transcript.

Glenn Greenwald is a constitutional lawyer turned journalist. His blog on Salon.com is one of the most influential on the internet. He’s written two best sellers: “How Would a Patriot Act?” about President Bush and executive power, and “A Tragic Legacy.” His most recent book is “Great American Hypocrites.”

Jay Rosen is a founder of the citizen journalism movement and is a professor of journalism at New York University, as well as a widely published writer and media critic. He created the popular blog called PressThink, subtitled “Ghost of Democracy in the Media Machine.”