Obama press corps: This is a disgrace, "this White House goes to extreme lengths to keep the press away.”

The frustrated Obama press corps neared rebellion this past holiday weekend when reporters and photographers were not even allowed onto the Floridian National GolfClub, where Obama was golfing. That breached the tradition of the pool “holding” in the clubhouse and often covering — and even questioning — the president on the first and last holes.

Obama boasted Thursday during a Google+ Hangout from the White House: “This is the most transparent administration in history.” The people who cover him day to day see it very differently.

“The way the president’s availability to the press has shrunk in the last two years is a disgrace,” said ABC News White House reporter Ann Compton, who has covered every president back to Gerald R. Ford. “The president’s day-to-day policy development — on immigration, on guns — is almost totally opaque to the reporters trying to do a responsible job of covering it. There are no readouts from big meetings he has with people from the outside, and many of them aren’t even on his schedule. This is different from every president I covered. This White House goes to extreme lengths to keep the press away.”

Brooks Kraft, a contributing photographer to Time, said White House officials “have a willing and able and hungry press that eats this stuff up, partly because the news organizations are cash-strapped.”

“White House handout photos used to be reserved for historically important events — 9/11, or deliberations about war,” Kraft said. “This White House regularly releases [day-in-the-life] images of the president … a nice picture of the president looking pensive … from events that could have been covered by the press pool. But I don’t blame the White House for doing it, because networks and newspapers use them. So the White House has built its own content distribution network.”

But something is different with this White House. Obama’s aides are better at using technology and exploiting the president’s “brand.” They are more disciplined about cracking down on staff that leak, or reporters who write things they don’t like. And they are obsessed with taking advantage of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and every other social media forums, not just for campaigns, but governing.

“They use every technique anyone has ever thought of, and some no one ever had,” New York Times White House reporter Peter Baker told us. “They can be very responsive and very helpful at pulling back the curtain at times while keeping you at bay at others. And they’re not at all shy about making clear when they don’t like your stories, which is quite often.”

Conservatives assume a cozy relationship between this White House and the reporters who cover it. Wrong. Many reporters find Obama himself strangely fearful of talking with them and often aloof and cocky when he does. They find his staff needlessly stingy with information and thin-skinned about any tough coverage. He gets more-favorable-than-not coverage because many staffers are fearful of talking to reporters, even anonymously, and some reporters inevitably worry access or the chance of a presidential interview will decrease if they get in the face of this White House.

“This administration loves to boast about how transparent they are, but they’re transparent about things they want to be transparent about,” said Mark Knoller, the veteran CBS News reporter. “He gives interviews not for our benefit, but to achieve his objective.” Knoller last talked to Obama in 2010 — and that was when Knoller was in then-press secretary Robert Gibbs’s office, and the president walked in.

This administration —like its predecessors — does some good old-fashioned bullying of reporters: making clear there will be no interviews, or even questions at press conferences, if aides are displeased with their coverage.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/obama-the-puppet-master-87764.html

EPA used bogus identities & email accounts to advance the Obama administration’s radical “environmental” agenda:
 
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its disgraced former boss Lisa Jackson are under fire from lawmakers and activists for, among other reasons, having recently been exposed violating federal law by using bogus identities and e-mail accounts to coordinate propaganda and policy with media allies, "green" groups, and policymakers to advance the Obama administration’s radical “environmental” agenda. Other EPA corruption is also still in the headlines, too, with the agency being criticized for ripping off U.S. taxpayers and foisting more unconstitutional regulations on the economy by working with extremist pseudo-environmental groups using a controversial scheme dubbed “sue and settle.”
 
The most recent major scandal, which began unraveling late last year after a federal court ruling, involves former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, who conveniently announced her resignation in late December. The self-styled “most progressive EPA chief in history" was caught, apparently in violation of federal law, using the fake name "Richard Windsor" and a bogus e-mail account to conspire with allies in the establishment media and friendly policymakers. The shady dealings were part of an effort to promote Jackson and the Obama administration’s wildly unconstitutional policies without being exposed to public scrutiny.

The pseudonym and fake e-mail account scandal, already being called "Windsorgate," was essentially aimed at skirting federal record-keeping laws barring the use of fake names in official government dealings, according to analysts. The other purpose of the unlawful scheme, first uncovered by a researcher at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, was to conceal the lawless EPA boss’s activities from mandatory public and congressional oversight. After a Freedom of Information Act request and a successful lawsuit by CEI, however, the whole plot is slowly coming to light.

Unsurprisingly, the EPA — created in 1970 by an unconstitutional “executive order” issued by then-President Richard Nixon — is still trying to hide as much of the incriminating evidence as possible using bogus justifications. Among other concerns, the agency has been redacting — blacking out — massive segments of the documents it was forced to release under court order. It flat out refused to release hundreds more.

Indeed, CEI Senior Fellow Christopher Horner told the Washington Examiner his organization estimates that about 85 percent of the "Richard Windsor" e-mails released last week were redacted. The concealment of the information was “justified,” according to the EPA, under the FOIA's exemption for documents dealing with a "deliberative process" used in formulating policy — possibly including the lawless policies surrounding the administration’s so-called “war on coal.”

Now, however, lawmakers and watchdog groups are starting to ask serious questions and demand answers. “For the sake of transparency, and of easing the road ahead for the next EPA administrator, we hope the EPA starts providing some answers,” noted CEI media coordinator Nicole Ciandella in a statement published by the Daily Caller, pointing out that the agency continues to stonewall all efforts to get to the truth. Other officials are publicly hammering the EPA as well.

Aside from the CEI, members of Congress are also trying to find out just what was going on at the EPA. Last month, for example, Republicans on the House Science Committee sent yet another letter to Jackson demanding that she hand over the documents — the third official request from the committee lawmakers since November of last year, when the scandal was first becoming a major public concern and a PR nightmare for the agency.

“The use of a false identity raises serious questions about whether the EPA has adequately preserved related records. Despite these legitimate concerns, the EPA has thus far refused to comply with the Committee’s request,” states the January 23 letter signed by six congressmen, adding that continued refusal to comply was “unacceptable” and could result in formal action to force the agency to obey.

The House committee’s letter continued, demanding answers. "As we mentioned in our previous letter, the public trusts that its government will operate in an open and transparent manner,” the lawmakers wrote. “EPA regulations have a significant impact on the everyday lives of Americans, and the agency should implement them in a manner that respects the public's trust."

The committee chairman, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), has also been vocal in demanding answers, but so far, few have been forthcoming. “The American public deserves to know whether Administrator Jackson’s secret email accounts were appropriately maintained by the agency according to requirements by federal law. If they have nothing to hide, why not comply with our request?” Rep. Smith wondered. “EPA’s refusal only adds to suspicion that Administrator Jackson’s secret email accounts were intended to evade transparency and circumvent congressional oversight.”
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/14564-epa-ex-boss-jackson-caught-breaking-law-scamming-us-taxpayers