Let FREEDOM RING???? No . . . . . let "SECRECY" be your guiding principle.

[PHILIP SCHNEIDER]

White House Meets Privately with Press to Discuss Benghazi

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by Ben Shapiro 10 May 2013 Breitbart

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In the White House’s latest efforts at transparency, the administration announced to reporters that it would brief reporters on the latest shocking developments about the Benghazi situation … behind closed doors. Politico reports that the meeting started at approximately 12:45 PM ET, and that it moved the normal press briefing to 1:45 PM ET. Jay Carney, White House press secretary, did not comment on whether the meeting took place.

Politico reports:

The off-the-record session was announced to reporters in the wake of an ABC News report showing that White House and State Dept. officials were involved in revising the now-discredited CIA talking points about the attack on Benghazi.

The administration routinely exerts pressure on reporters it feels are not kind enough in their coverage. Reporters like Cheryl Attkisson of CBS News have felt the hand of their bosses for “wading dangerously close to advocacy” with regard to Benghazi. No doubt this “off-the-record” meeting was designed to get all the president’s horses and all the president’s men to put the Benghazi humpty dumpty together again.

UPDATE: Reporters not invited to the off-the-record briefing are reportedly incredibly unhappy about it:

UPDATE II: Jake Tapper of CNN reports that the regularly scheduled press briefing has been delayed even further:

UPDATE III: Politico now reports that the meeting has been characterized as "deep background." The existence of the meeting itself is considered "off-the-record." White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, "Deep background means that the info presented by the briefers can be used in reporting but the briefers can't be quoted." So expect a fair number of "White House sources" to appear in reportage for the next few days.

UPDATE IV: Jay Carney began his on-the-record press briefing by announcing that 14 news organizations were invited to the closed door briefing, but that it was not a substitute for the on-the-record briefing. He then announced that it was "erroneous" to describe the briefing as "off-the-record," and instead suggested it was "deep background."

Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).

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[Gordon Ray Kissinger]

There's Way Too Much Administration Smoke on Benghazi

A former National Security Council spokesman, Tommy Vietor, is representative of the arrogance of the Obama administration in mocking the congressional hearings on Benghazi, Libya, which he contemptuously derided as "amateur hour" and conspiratorial.

In a tweet to The Washington Post's Dana Milbank, Vietor mocked Rep. Jason Chaffetz, saying, "What do you think Rep. Chaffetz will disclose today? Moon landing photos? Map of Area 51?"

Very funny, Mr. Vietor, but your snark does nothing to explain many anomalies concerning the administration's mishandling of the Benghazi attacks -- though it reveals how indifferent certain administration loyalists are to its misbehavior. Not as indifferent, perhaps, as the administration itself ("This happened a long time ago" and "What difference does it make?") but indifferent nonetheless.

Let's review a list of just some of the troubling questions that have been raised about this sordid affair and see whether any of them concern people of good will, irrespective of their party affiliation.

Gregory Hicks, the State Department's former deputy chief of mission in Libya, was emphatic in denying that the attacks occurred as a result of demonstrations over an anti-Islam video and was adamant that the administration was well aware of this fact. He said: "The video was not instigative of anything that was going on in Libya. We saw no demonstrations related to the video anywhere in Libya." Hicks said he never told then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that it was a protest about the video.

Indeed, Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post fact checker, acknowledged that Hicks provided new information in his testimony when he related that he spoke directly to Clinton the night of the first attack and briefed her, "presumably relaying his conclusions" that there was no demonstration at the consulate prior to the attack.

This is why Hicks said -- when he heard the administration, through U.N. Ambassador Susan E. Rice, stating just the opposite on the Sunday morning talk shows -- "I was stunned; my jaw dropped. And I was embarrassed."

Hicks' reaction is justified, given the administration's obviously premeditated strategy to deceive the American people into believing the attacks were the result of outrage over an Islam-bashing video rather than an organized terrorist attack. Obama and Clinton were up to their necks in complicity in this deceit and even spent $70,000 of taxpayer money on a commercial on Pakistani television apologizing for the scapegoated video. From this we can fairly conclude that the administration was more interested in covering its own rear end by protecting its pre-election narrative that it had terrorism under control than it was in the truth or even in preventing possible negative fallout this false report could cause.

Negative fallout is precisely what it produced. Hicks said that the administration's video yarn "insulted" Libyan President Mohamed Magariaf in front of his own people and reduced his credibility by contradicting his earlier claims that the attack was premeditated. Hicks said Magariaf was "still steamed" two weeks later. Because of this, Hicks said, "I definitely believe that it negatively affected our ability to get the FBI team quickly to Benghazi." The Libyans, said Hicks, wouldn't even secure the scene of the attack.

If Obama and Clinton were truly concerned about Muslims being offended by a video, why would they disseminate that lie and trigger that very effect?

Rep. Chaffetz says that State Department employees were forbidden to talk to him about the incident -- as if the federal government exists of, by and for the administration and not the people.

Was the military team in Tripoli actually denied permission to fly to Benghazi? Hicks asserts that if the U.S. military had flown aircraft over the Benghazi facility after it came under siege, it might have prevented the second attack -- on the CIA annex -- which killed two CIA security officers. Hicks said: "I believe the Libyans would have split. They would have been scared to death that we would have gotten a laser on them and killed them."

Did Clinton's chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, call Hicks and angrily order him not to talk to members of Congress about the attacks as Hicks claims? Did the State Department retaliate against Hicks after he raised questions about the video ruse? Why else was he "effectively demoted" to a desk job?

Why did the Pentagon deny a request from House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon for access to documents on the attacks?

Did the Defense Department assessment team stop short of interviewing all people who were involved in the key decisions before issuing its report as State Department official Eric Nordstrom alleges?

Who altered Rice's talking points? Will the White House release to House Speaker John Boehner emails from senior State Department officials telling higher-ups Benghazi was a terror attack four days before Rice made the talk show circuit?

Why wasn't security tightened in Benghazi in the months leading up to the attack, especially considering that the consulate had requested it?

And why aren't more people outraged that the producer of this video, regardless of its content, is sitting in jail solely because he exercised his freedom of expression?

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

[Gordon Ray Kissinger]

Presidents of ABC and CBS News Have Siblings Working at White House With Ties to Benghazi

Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters 

"CBS News President David Rhodes and ABC News President Ben Sherwood, both of them have siblings that not only work at the White House, that not only work for President Obama, but they work at the NSC on foreign policy issues directly related to Benghazi."

So stated political consultant and media commentator Richard Grenell on Saturday's Fox News Watch (video follows with transcript and commentary): (Watch Video) 

RICHARD GRENELL: I think the media's becoming the story, let's face it. CBS News President David Rhodes and ABC News President Ben Sherwood, both of them have siblings that not only work at the White House, that not only work for President Obama, but they work at the NSC on foreign policy issues directly related to Benghazi. Let's call a spade a spade.

Let's also show you why CNN did not go very far in covering these hearings because the CNN deputy bureau chief, Virginia Moseley, is married to Hillary Clinton’s deputy, Tom Nides. It is time for the media to start asking questions why are they not covering this. It's a family matter for some of them.

JON SCOTT, HOST: So they don't want to bring embarrassment upon folks who, who they're close to?

GRENELL: Who directly are related to this story. Absolutely. They're covering for them. There's no question about it.

For the record, Ben Sherwood's sister, Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, is the Special Assistant to Barack Obama.

Virginia Moseley's husband, Tom Nides, is the Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources. 

As for David Rhodes' brother Ben, he is Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communication.

As ABCNews.com reported Friday, Rhodes was a key player in revising the White House's Benghazi talking points last September: 

In an email dated 9/14/12 at 9:34 p.m. — three days after the attack and two days before Ambassador Rice appeared on the Sunday shows – Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes wrote an email saying the State Department’s concerns needed to be addressed.

“We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the FBI investigation. We thus will work through the talking points tomorrow morning at the Deputies Committee meeting.”

After that meeting, which took place Saturday morning at the White House, the CIA drafted the final version of the talking points – deleting all references to al Qaeda and to the security warnings in Benghazi prior to the attack. 

Consider, too, that CBS News executives possibly including Rhodes have allegedly come down on their own investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson for "wading dangerously close to advocacy on" Benghazi.

If Attkisson gets the boot, it could very well be with a foot attached to the brother of an Obama administration official directly involved in the cover-up.

A family matter indeed.

[Wolfy Ghalkhani]

Evil is stalking our country. Lord help us. we have forgotten who we are as a people who trusted in the teachings of Jesus. we have been led astray and it will be our children who suffer.