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Perhaps the mainstream media Brahmins have short memories or selective memories. Because when President Barack Obama took direct aim at the media and press freedom, few complained. And when they did, the media soon went back to giving him fawning coverage.

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Here are 11 moments Obama abused the press:

1. Campaign plane hijacking journalists. In 2008, the Obama campaign flew 25 members of the media to Chicago without telling them then-Sen. Obama was not, in fact, on board. CNN reported: [T]he press was essentially held hostage with no candidate and no choice but to fly to Chicago on a chartered plane.

2. Closing White House events to all but the official photographer. Obama barred the media from events including, ironically, an award ceremony where he was recognized for transparency and often restricted photographers access, only releasing images taken bythe official White House photographer.

3. Trying to shut out Fox News. The Obama administration targeted Fox News for isolation and marginalization, arguing that it was not a legitimate news organization but the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party. That served as a warning to other potentially critical outlets.

4. Stonewalling FOIA requests. The Obama administration set a record for failing to provide information requested by the press and the public under the Freedom of Information Act. The low point was Hillary Clintons email scandal, where tens of thousands of emails were hidden on a private server and deleted.

5. Prosecuting journalists and their sources. The Obama administration pursued Fox News reporter James Rosens private emails then misled Congress about it. CNNs Jake Tapper to his credit pointed out that Obama had used the Espionage Act against leakers more than all of his predecessors combined.

6. Wiretapping the Associated Press.After the Obama administrations snooping on the AP was exposed in 2013, a senior NBC correspondent excused President Obamaon the grounds that he would not have been nasty enough to alienate one of the presidents most important constituencies, the press.

7. Refusing to hold press conferences.For long stretches of his presidency, Obama refused to hold press conferencesat all, going 10 months without a formal press conference in a critical stretch from 2009 to 2010. He heeled the lowest average annual number of press conferences of any president since Ronald Reagan.

8. Filibustering at press conferences. When Obama did, finally, hold press conference, he often limited the number of questions by delivering long, rambling, often condescending answers. He wastes reporters time by refraining from answering questions with any candor, Jack Shafer complainedin Politico in 2016.

9. Attacking tough questions. When a Major Garrett of CBS actually asked a tough question about why the administration seemed not to be trying hard to free Americans held by Iran, includingWashington Post journalist Jason Rezaian Obama scolded him: Major, thats nonsense, and you should know better.

10. Appearing on fringe outlets. While media elitesgripe about conservative journalists being given a chance, Obama often restricted his appearances to fringe media:Inside Edition; Funny or Dies Between Two Ferns (which was then nominated for an Emmy); YouTube stars; anda radio show called Pimp with a Limp.

11. Iran deal echo chamber.The Obama administrationcreated fake news to support the Iran deal, setting up what it later boasted was an echo chamber of experts who would comment in the media to support the White House narrative on the negotiations. Meanwhile, key details were hidden from the public.

Through it all, President Obama regarded himself as a champion of press freedom, having run the most transparent administration ever.

Many mainstream media journalists ignoredthe Obama administrations abuses. A fewspoke out against them. But mostof them continued to paint him in glowing terms, regardless.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the most influential people in news media in 2016. His new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

More:
11 Times Barack Obama Abused Press Freedom - Breitbart News

This article originally appeared on The Conversation.

The relationship between black presidential candidates and potential voters is more complex than it is for their white opponents. Myresearchon historic firsts shows that white voters tend to ascribe characteristics to black candidates that place them at a disadvantage.

Thats why Barack Obamas presidency became synonymous with an end goal of the civil rights movement and a source of pride for so many Americans. His campaign experience, like that of predecessors Shirley Chisholm and Jesse Jackson, suggests something about the extent to which African-Americans have gained acceptance as legitimate political actors.

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Obama more easily mobilized white voters because he was less interested in challenging the system, and more ideologically liberal than his predecessors. He also adapted to the political environment, recognizing key voting constituencies. Obama pulled together the type of coalition that Chisholm and Jackson had aspired to lead, composed of college students, hard-core progressives, organized labor and independents.

His departure from office is a time to look back and recall the historic impact of his candidacy and victory.

Presidentialcampaignslaunched by Shirley Chisholm in 1972 and Jesse Jackson in 1984 were aimed at forging interracial alliances. However, each of these candidates failed to build a coalition of historically marginalized groups. Instead, theirrhetoricprimarily appealed to African-American voters in locales where they comprised a majority, or near majority, of the population.

Percy Maimela, a self-taught artist, puts finishing touches to a portrait of former U.S. President Barack Obama, created using salt, at his home in Pretoria, South Africa, January 24. Reuters

As a result, they drew limited support from white voters. For example, by large margins, white votersviewed Jacksonas less knowledgeable, less fair, less likely to care about people like them and more prejudiced than his white opponents Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis.

Like Chisholm and Jackson, Obamas candidacy in 2008 aroused fears, resentments and prejudices.

He was falsely accused of being a Muslim. Stereotypes werereinventedand popular images reanimated and parodied in blogs, email, tweets and other social media outlets. T-shirts were printed with animageof Curious George, a monkey from a well-known childrens book, inscribed with the words Obama 08, comparing African-Americans to apes.

The Tea Party Movement, a conservative wing of the Republican Party, alsoorchestrateda number of attacks on Obamas patriotism, religious beliefs and citizenship status through protest rallies and social media. Obamas racial identity and other personal traits remained a matter of public debate long after the general election.

Like his predecessors, Obama was perceived aslackingleadershipexperience. He was viewed as less competent, less knowledgeable of foreign affairs and more concerned with racial issues like affirmative action and immigration reform.

Because he was undeniably black, he was seen as an authentic representative of the African-American electorate, not the entire American electorate. His campaign had to overcome this notion.

Obama employed a race-neutral approach during his first presidential campaign. In his hallmarkspeechat the 2004 DNC he said:

Theres not a liberal America and a conservative America, there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America, there is the United States of America.

His rhetoric aimed to satisfy diverse constituents across racial and ethnic groups. Obama used universal, color-blind language that appealed to most Americans.

He focused on quality-of-life issues, such as universal health care, equal educational opportunities and full employment for the lower and middle classes. Doing so increased the likelihood that more Americans would support his campaign. He was less interested in race-specific overtures that directly appealed to African-American voters. As I argue inmy book, Historic Firsts: How Symbolic Empowerment Changes U.S. Politics, Obama unified liberal white voters.

Still, pundits pondered whether a black man, elected by a white majority with support of African-American voters, represented a psychological, but not necessarily a substantive, triumph over race.

His predecessors Chisholm and Jackson had heavily relied on racial bloc voting and the stylistic influence of a Black Power traditionspeaking truth to power, dramatic confrontation and public spectaclefor electoral success. Obama was a successful candidate because he was neither righteous nor indignant. He ran a campaign that was racially and culturally inclusive.

Today, there is little question as to whether a black male politician at the top of a major partys presidential ticket can transform beliefs about African-American men in politics. The outcome of the 2008 American presidential election shows that the majority of American voters are willing to vote for a black Democratic presidential candidate.

However, it is a certain type of black presidential candidate who will find it easier, and others more difficult, to gain white support.

Evelyn M. Simien isAssociate Professor of Political Science and Africana Studies, University of Connecticut.

More:
Obama and Race: Color-Blind Rhetoric Helped Forge Winning Coalition - Newsweek

President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference announcing Alexander Acosta as the new Labor Secretary nominee. (Getty Images)

Did Donald Trump inherit "a mess" when he took the oath of office? He certainly thinks so.

He used the phrase four times in his marathon press conference on Feb. 16:

"As you know, our administration inherited many problems across government and across the economy," he told the assembled reporters. "To be honest, I inherited a mess. It's a mess. At home and abroad, a mess. Jobs are pouring out of the country; you see what's going on with all of the companies leaving our country, going to Mexico and other places, low pay, low wages, mass instability overseas, no matter where you look. The Middle East is a disaster. North Korea -- we'll take care of it folks. We're going to take care of it all. I just want to let you know, I inherited a mess."

Was it really a "mess"? As fact-checkers, our research on the economy, at least, has shown a lot of improvement in recent years.

Because "a mess" is a subjective term, we decided not to rate his statement on our Truth-O-Meter. Instead, well look at some hard numbers and let readers make up their own minds.

We should note that no president is all-powerful in controlling the economy. Global market forces, changes in technology, oil shocks and random events play roles as well. So assigning a president full credit or blame is unwise.

That said, well proceed to an assessment of two areas. First, well look at the economy. Then well analyze foreign policy.

The White House sent us a supporting document titled "Inheriting A Mess" that listed slow growth in gross domestic product and wages, losses in manufacturing jobs, "higher costs and fewer choices" under the Affordable Care Act, and rising college tuition and student debt loads. On the foreign policy front, they cited negative developments in North Korea, Syria and Afghanistan, the spread of ISIS, tensions with Israel, and the negotiations that led to the Iran nuclear agreement. We'll expand on these topics below.

The economy

President Barack Obamas greatest economic achievement was to prevent the Great Recession from spiraling into a full-blown depression.

By the time Obama was inaugurated in 2009, the unemployment rate had spiked from 5 percent to 7.8 percent, on its way to 10 percent a few months later. A rising tide of middle-class families were losing homes, turning to food stamps and seeking government-sponsored health care for the first time.

Yet Obama handed Trump the reins of an economy with a 4.7 percent unemployment rate; 75 consecutive months of job growth; rising stock prices, home values, corporate profits and consumer confidence; low inflation; and, following several years of sluggish income growth, a record spike in middle-class incomes.

In 2016, increases in hourly earnings accelerated, which, when combined with increased rates of employment, helped boost overall household incomes. Real household debt is lower than it was in 2006.

"As 2016 ends, the U.S. labor market is in its best shape since the recession, with nearly every measure of the market at its most favorable level in years," economist Jed Kolko concluded in his end-of-the-year report for the jobs website Indeed.

In other words, Obama left the economy in much better shape than he inherited it, even if it remains imperfect for every American.

"In general, the response to the Great Recession was forceful but sensible," Edward Glaeser, a Harvard University economist, told us last year. "There were few massive mistakes on his watch."

Obama oversaw several far-reaching programs designed to prevent a chain reaction of collapse. Two began under Bush. One was the $426 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, which helped stabilize the financial industry. The other was the auto bailout, which helped set the stage for a genuine rebound in the auto industry later in Obamas tenure. Within a few years, car sales were hitting record highs.

In the two years when he had a Democratic-controlled Congress, Obama proceeded to enact a roughly $800 billion stimulus bill that included federal spending on infrastructure, tax cuts and fiscal help help for cash-strapped states. He also managed to enact the financial regulatory bill known as Dodd-Frank, as well as the Affordable Care Act, his signature initiative that helped provide options for people to keep health insurance even if they lost their job.

This isnt to say that everything was perfect on Obamas watch.

Income inequality remains persistently high, with many rural and blue-collar areas of the country stuck in a decades-long economic rut. While food stamp use and poverty rates have eased, they still havent returned to their pre-recession levels. Gross domestic product growth the engine of long-term economic prosperity remains sluggish, even after the recession officially transitioned into the recovery.

Job gains have been relatively modest in scale compared to some previous recoveries. And even those who credit Obamas actions worry about a declining labor-force participation rate, which hasnt been this low since the 1970s. Part of this is due to retirements by baby boomers, but not all of it, and economists arent entirely sure why a relatively large number of Americans have decided to do things other than work.

All told, Obama took an economy with a big hole in it and was able to fill it in and give it stability, said Brookings Institution economist Gary Burtless. That stability was passed on to Trump.

"It would have been far more accurate to describe the economy as a mess when President Kennedy took office in 1961, when President Reagan took office in 1981, when President Obama took office in 2009, or even when President Clinton took office in 1993 than it is to describe the economy as a mess in January 2017," Burtless said.

Ultimately, the epitaph for the Obama economy is more likely to be about perils avoided, Tara Sinclair, a George Washington University economist, told us at the end of Obamas term.

"He could have done somewhat better," she said, "but he also could have done a lot worse."

Foreign policy

Trump can make a stronger case that he inherited a foreign policy "mess" than an economic one, though most foreign policy specialists said the situation is more nuanced than he makes it out to be.

We found broad agreement that certain areas of the world are more unstable today than when Obama took office. The biggest one is probably the Middle East.

"Obama presided over the period of the Arab Spring, in which many Middle Eastern states witnessed large-scale uprisings and the complete failure of several states," said Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.

"In some places such as Libya, Syria and Yemen, Obama's diplomacy and military actions made the situation worse," he added. "More aggressive action would probably have backfired, but liberal interventionism did not help."

Barnett Rubin, associate director of the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, agreed that "its fair to say that President Trump inherited a mess in Syria." He added, though, that whether Obama is to blame for this is "unknowable."

"Was there something Obama could have done and failed to do that would have made the situation better?" Rubin said. "There are reasonable arguments for both answers. I lean toward no, but I respect those who think otherwise."

Anthony Clark Arend, a professor of government and foreign service at Georgetown University, agreed, saying, "Perhaps if the Obama Administration would have provided support to Syrian rebels early, (Syrian President Bashar) Assad may not have been able to survive. Perhaps if the Obama administration had acted forcibly, the conflict might not have escalated. But we will never know. There are a lot of ifs here."

Meanwhile, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "seems to have worsened over the past eight years, with no immediate prospects for progress," Arend said. And several experts said Obama was slow to recognize the threat posed by the Islamic State, or ISIS, although some give him credit for slow, steady progress against the group in recent years.

As for other parts of the world, several experts highlighted a deterioration in the U.S.-Russia relationship.

It was a "mistake" by Obama to goad Russian President Vladimir Putin by calling Russia a "regional power," Rubin said, and Obamas relative inaction against the annexation of the Crimean region of Ukraine "was a tragic mistake on his part," said John Pike, director of globalsecurity.org.

In Asia, Obama had to grapple with increasing Chinese militarism in the South China Sea, said Lance Janda, a Cameron University military historian. "Our fault? No," he said. "Critics would say we should have reacted more strongly, and that our unwillingness to do so helped push Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte toward the Chinese." But Duterte is a loose cannon, he said, "and I dont think fighting the Chinese over the Spratly Islands would have made sense."

In a few places, experts said, relations were generally better at the end of Obamas term than at the beginning, particularly South Asia, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. Obama also moved to repair ties with such authoritarian states as Iran and Cuba, though such developments were -- and remain -- highly controversial. And Obama -- to a greater degree than Trump so far -- generally maintained cordial relations with U.S. allies.

More quietly, Arend said, great strides have been made in combating global poverty and disease, while international laws have protected human rights and the environment in many nations and, by historical standards, fewer people today are dying in armed conflict.

Of course, its also true that a number of foreign policy hotspots were problematic at the end of Obamas term, just as they were at the beginning of his term. These include Afghanistan, Iraq and North Korea. (Trump specifically mentioned North Korea during his press conference.)

Ultimately, Trump may have a point that the world is a "mess" today -- but experts emphasized that it has almost always been thus.

"In foreign affairs, every president inherits a mess," Rubin said. "It's the nature of the international order. I don't think that the current mess is so different from other messes."

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"To be honest, I inherited a mess."

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Thursday, February 16, 2017

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Did Donald Trump inherit 'a mess' from Barack Obama? - PolitiFact

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In a February 17 article, NPRs Ron Elving claimed that the American people are tired of presidential campaigns that last too long, but Now, they are confronted with one that refuses to end even after reaching the White House.

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Elvings attack on Trump came in response to the Presidents often combative February 15 press conference that the NPR Washington correspondent described with a simpleWow.

After notingthe criticism of the presser published by various news outlets, Elving then complained that Trump used I or me or the royal we too often during his presentation.

The NPR staffer then went on to say, The president often seemed to be responding in the manner of a candidate. He added, The campaign mode continues this weekend, with the president again rallying like its 2016.

Elving suggested that Trump might be being using this permanent campaign as a tactic to keep his policy ideas at the front of the political discussion.

Or perhaps the campaign continues because it continues, Elving said as he wrapped up. The president does not yet seem comfortable in his new office with all the crosswinds and complications of divided powers and shared responsibilities.

PerhapsElving has been in a coma since 2007, when Obama launched a campaign for president that didnt end until he left office on January 20, 2017. Obama spent eight years being hit with charges that he never stopped campaigning, It was one of the most common criticisms of the Obama presidency.

In fact, Obama kept his campaign apparatus, Organizing for America, in operationeven after what he claimed would be his last election. In December of 2012, for instance,The Observer remarkedthat OFA was still soliciting contributions months after Obama won his second term.

Indeed, OFA is up and running today, aiming to undermine Donald Trump and many are making noteof it.Obamacontinues to issue tweets using the OFA Twitter account,and gives marching orders to his OFA army, even in reputed retirement.

In August of 2009, former George W. Bush political advisor Karl Rove charged that Obama was continuing to use divisive, and permanent campaign tactics despiteeasily winning his election. The Washington Timesobserved the same thing.

The claim was not made only by disgruntled conservatives or center-right news sources, either.

In 2013 The New York Times wrote that Obamas campaign without end was fundraising in an unprecedented manner.

Before that, the Washington Posts Dana Milbank commented on the issue in May of 2012, saying that Obama had embraced the permanent campaign and was flying all across the country leading campaign-style rallies to push his agenda.

To a greater extent than his predecessors, Obama has used the trappings of his office to promote his reelection prospects even while handling taxpayer-funded business, Milbank wrote.

In addition, several left-wing websites and commentators actually celebrated Obama for using campaign tactics to continue to sell his ideas. MSNBC praised Obama for putting the permanent campaign to good use, and The Atlantic marveled that Obamas permanent campaign was using his reelection playbook to change Washington.

With all this, it is interesting that today NPRs Ron Elving seems to have only just noticed that a president is perpetrating a permanent campaign to keep his policieson track to completion.

Finally, it was rathertone deaf for Elving to criticize Donald Trump for using I and me too much, coming off the last eight years ofa president famous for his narcissistic references to himself in every appearance. Despite mocking the penchant of the center-right press for keeping count of his self-referential habits, The Washington Post recently published a piecenoting just how often Obama talked about himself.

After all, Barack Obama was the president so enthralled with himself that he gave the Queen of England the dubious gift of an iPod filled with Barack Obama speeches.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.

The rest is here:
After 8 Years of Campaigner-in-Chief Obama, NPR Accuses Trump of 'Permanent Campaign' - Breitbart News

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NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) Democratic members of Congress from Connecticut are meeting with constituents to discuss the impact of former President Barack Obamas health care law.

Congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump have pledged to repeal and replace the 2010 law.

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro plans to host a round table discussion Saturday with those who have pre-existing medical conditions. Obamas Affordable Care Act prohibits insurers from denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions.

The event is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. at the Manjares Restaurant in New Haven.

Congressman Joe Courtney is also hosting a 12:30 p.m. forum Saturday with patients, small business owners, and local health care experts to discuss what a repeal of the Affordable Care Act could mean for eastern Connecticut families at Generations Family Health Center in Willimantic.

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