Obama administration spied on Fox News reporter’s e-mails and phone calls

Twitchy has everything linked here. And UPDATE: THREE Fox News reporters, including MEGYN KELLY were targeted.

Here’s a quick snapshot of what happened from radically left-wing UK Guardian, of all places: (links removed)

Fox News chief Washington correspondent James Rosen had his emails read by the Obama DOJ, which accused him of being a co-conspirator in a criminal leak case.

It is now well known that the Obama justice department has prosecuted more government leakers under the 1917 Espionage Act than all prior administrations combined - in fact, double the number of all such prior prosecutions. But as last week’s controversy over the DOJ’s pursuit of the phone records of AP reporters illustrated, this obsessive fixation in defense of secrecy also targets, and severely damages, journalists specifically and the newsgathering process in general.

New revelations emerged yesterday in the Washington Post that are perhaps the most extreme yet when it comes to the DOJ’s attacks on press freedoms. It involves the prosecution of State Department adviser Stephen Kim, a naturalized citizen from South Korea who was indicted in 2009 for allegedly telling Fox News’ chief Washington correspondent, James Rosen, that US intelligence believed North Korea would respond to additional UN sanctions with more nuclear tests – something Rosen then reported. Kim did not obtain unauthorized access to classified information, nor steal documents, nor sell secrets, nor pass them to an enemy of the US. Instead, the DOJ alleges that he merely communicated this innocuous information to a journalist – something done every day in Washington – and, for that, this arms expert and long-time government employee faces more than a decade in prison for “espionage”.

The focus of the Post’s report yesterday is that the DOJ’s surveillance of Rosen, the reporter, extended far beyond even what they did to AP reporters. The FBI tracked Rosen’s movements in and out of the State Department, traced the timing of his calls, and – most amazingly – obtained a search warrant to read two days worth of his emails, as well as all of his emails with Kim. In this case, said the Post, “investigators did more than obtain telephone records of a working journalist suspected of receiving the secret material.” It added that “court documents in the Kim case reveal how deeply investigators explored the private communications of a working journalist”.

But what makes this revelation particularly disturbing is that the DOJ, in order to get this search warrant, insisted that not only Kim, but also Rosen – the journalist – committed serious crimes. The DOJ specifically argued that by encouraging his source to disclose classified information – something investigative journalists do every day – Rosen himself broke the law. Describing an affidavit from FBI agent Reginald Reyes filed by the DOJ, the Post reports [emphasis added]:

“Reyes wrote that there was evidence Rosen had broken the law, ‘at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator’. That fact distinguishes his case from the probe of the AP, in which the news organization is not the likely target. Using italics for emphasis, Reyes explained how Rosen allegedly used a ‘covert communications plan’ and quoted from an e-mail exchange between Rosen and Kim that seems to describe a secret system for passing along information. . . . However, it remains an open question whether it’s ever illegal, given the First Amendment’s protection of press freedom, for a reporter to solicit information. No reporter, including Rosen, has been prosecuted for doing so.”

Under US law, it is not illegal to publish classified information. That fact, along with the First Amendment’s guarantee of press freedoms, is what has prevented the US government from ever prosecuting journalists for reporting on what the US government does in secret. This newfound theory of the Obama DOJ – that a journalist can be guilty of crimes for “soliciting” the disclosure of classified information – is a means for circumventing those safeguards and criminalizing the act of investigative journalism itself. These latest revelations show that this is not just a theory but one put into practice, as the Obama DOJ submitted court documents accusing a journalist of committing crimes by doing this.

I find it amusing that the journalists on the left are just now realizing that the most left-wing President we have ever had is just like all the other left-wing leaders. He’s a fascist. Fascism is solely a phenomenon of the left. What fascism means is “big government”. To be on the right is to be for smaller government, free trade, and more liberty for families and individuals. That’s why fascism is only enacted by parties on the political left. Free-market capitalism means limited government.

Filed under: News, Barack Obama, Chilling Effect, Espionage, Fascism, Fox News, Freedom of the Press, James Rosen, Journalism, Marxism, Totalitarianism, White House, Wire-Tapping, Wiretapping

Do Kermit Gosnell and Barack Obama have the same views on abortion?

First, let’s look at this re-cap of the Gosnell story in the Atlantic. This story features a full re-cap of facts, and then concludes with a discussion of media bias.

Take a look at the facts of the case:

On February 18, 2010, the FBI raided the “Women’s Medical Society,” entering its offices about 8:30 p.m. Agents expected to find evidence that it was illegally selling prescription drugs. On entering, they quickly realized something else was amiss. In the grand jury report’s telling, “There was blood on the floor. A stench of urine filled the air. A flea-infested cat was wandering through the facility, and there were cat feces on the stairs. Semi-conscious women scheduled for abortions were moaning in the waiting room or the recovery room, where they sat on dirty recliners covered with blood-stained blankets. All the women had been sedated by unlicensed staff.” Authorities had also learned about the patient that died at the facility several months prior.

Public health officials inspected the surgery rooms. “Instruments were not sterile,” the grand jury states. “Equipment was rusty and outdated. Oxygen equipment was covered with dust, and had not been inspected. The same corroded suction tubing used for abortions was the only tubing available for oral airways if assistance for breathing was needed. There was no functioning resuscitation or even monitoring equipment, except for a single blood pressure cuff.” Upon further inspection, “the search team discovered fetal remains haphazardly stored throughout the clinic – in bags, milk jugs, orange juice cartons, and even in cat-food containers.”

And “Gosnell admitted to Detective Wood that at least 10 to 20 percent of the fetuses were probably older than 24 weeks in gestation – even though Pennsylvania law prohibits abortions after 24 weeks. In some instances, surgical incisions had been made at the base of the fetal skulls.” Gosnell’s medical license was quickly suspended. 18 days later, The Department of Health filed papers to start the process of closing the clinic. The district attorney submitted the case to the grand jury on May 4, 2010. Testimony was taken from 58 witnesses. Evidence was examined.

In Pennsylvania, most doctors won’t perform abortions after the 20th week, many for health reasons, others for moral reasons. Abortions after 24 weeks are illegal. Until 2009, Gosnell reportedly performed mostly first and second trimester abortions. But his clinic had come to develop a bad reputation, and could attract only women who couldn’t get an abortion elsewhere, former employees have said. “Steven Massof estimated that in 40 percent of the second-trimester abortions performed by Gosnell, the fetuses were beyond 24 weeks gestational age,” the grand jury states. “Latosha Lewis testified that Gosnell performed procedures over 24 weeks ‘too much to count,’ and ones up to 26 weeks ‘very often.’ …in the last few years, she testified, Gosnell increasingly saw out-of-state referrals, which were all second-trimester, or beyond. By these estimates, Gosnell performed at least four or five illegal abortions every week.”

Now let’s recall what Obama’s position is on born-alive abortion:

There wasn’t any question about what was happening. The abortions were going wrong. The babies weren’t cooperating. They wouldn’t die as planned. Or, as Illinois state senator Barack Obama so touchingly put it, there was “movement or some indication that, in fact, they’re not just coming out limp and dead.”

No, Senator. They wouldn’t go along with the program. They wouldn’t just come out limp and dead.

They were coming out alive. Born alive. Babies. Vulnerable human beings Obama, in his detached pomposity, might otherwise include among “the least of my brothers.” But of course, an abortion extremist can’t very well be invoking Saint Matthew, can he? So, for Obama, the shunning of these least of our brothers and sisters – millions of them – is somehow not among America’s greatest moral failings.

But not Barack Obama. As an Illinois state senator, he voted to permit infanticide. And now, running for president, he banks on media adulation to insulate him from his past.

The record, however, doesn’t lie.

Infanticide is a bracing word. But in this context, it’s the only word that fits. Obama heard the testimony of a nurse, Jill Stanek. She recounted how she’d spent 45 minutes holding a living baby left to die.

And let’s review Obama’s position on partial-birth abortion:

Obama’s 2008 endorsement of late-term abortion bans also appeared to be in conflict with his support for the Freedom of Choice Act. In 2007, Obama cosponsored the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), which would strike down restrictions on abortion at the state and federal level. The bill stated that all abortions must be legal before “viability” for any reason and that abortions must be legal until birth if a woman’s health is at risk. FOCA does not contain a definition of “health,” therefore “anything an abortionist says is related to ‘health’ is sufficient,” according to Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee. “A state would not be able to adopt any limiting definition (for example, defining ‘health’ to exclude emotional distress), because that would be to narrow and infringe on the federally guaranteed right which FOCA would establish.  The entire purpose of FOCA is to prohibit any narrowing of the federally guaranteed right — for example, by requiring parental notification, or by refusing to fund abortions.”

Could it be that the reason that the media is not reporting on this story is because they are trying to protect the President?

Related posts

• Washington Post writer explains why she refuses to report on Gosnell case
• Finally: liberal USA Today reports on Kermit Gosnell infanticide case
• New testimony from another ex-employee of the Kermit Gosnell abortion clinic
• Assistant to Kermit Gosnell admits to killing ten born-alive babies
• Mark Steyn on big government and the violence of abortion
  
• From January 19th, 2011: State regulators ignored abortionist who killed born-alive infants with scissors

Filed under: News, Abortion, Barack Obama, Bias, Born Alive, Born-Alive Abortion, Broadcast News, Democrat, Democrat Party, Drive-By Media, Feminism, Gosnell, Infanticide, Journalism, Kermit Gosnell, Left-Wing Bias, Left-Wing Media, Mainstream Media, Media Bias, News Media, Obama, Partial Birth, Partial Birth Abortion, Philadelphia, Planned Parenthood

Washington Post writer explains why she refuses to report on Gosnell case

If you tweet this post, please use the Twitter hash tag #Gosnell. Thanks!

Mollie over at Get Religion blog questioned a Washington Post reporter about why she isn’t writing about the Kermit Gosnell abortion / infanticide case.

Here’s the relevant snippet: (links removed)

Inspired by Kirsten Powers’ USA Today column yesterday, I decided to start asking journalists about their personal involvement in the Gosnell cover-up.

[...]I decided, since tmatt has me reading the Washington Post every day, to look at how the paper’s health policy reporter was covering Gosnell. I have critiqued many of her stories on the Susan G. Komen Foundation (she wrote quite a bit about that) and the Sandra Fluke controversy (she wrote quite a bit about that) and the Todd Akin controversy (you know where this is going). In fact, a site search for that reporter — who is named Sarah Kliff — and stories Akin and Fluke and Komen — yields more than 80 hits. Guess how many stories she’s done on this abortionist’s mass murder trial.

Did you guess zero? You’d be right.

So I asked her about it. Here’s her response:

Hi Molly – I cover policy for the Washington Post, not local crime, hence why I wrote about all the policy issues you mention.

Yes. She really, really, really said that. As Robert VerBruggen dryly responded:

Makes sense. Similarly, national gun-policy people do not cover local crime in places like Aurora or Newtown.

So when a private foundation privately decides to stop giving money to the country’s largest abortion provider, that is somehow a policy issue deserving of three dozen breathless hits. When a yahoo political candidate says something stupid about rape, that is a policy issue of such import that we got another three dozen hits about it from this reporter. It was so important that journalists found it fitting to ask every pro-lifer in their path to discuss it. And when someone says something mean to a birth control activist, that’s good for months of puffy profiles.

But gosh darn it, can you think of any policy implications to this, uh, “local crime” story? And that’s all it is. Just like a bunch of other local stories the Washington Postalso refuses to cover — local crimes such as the killing of Trayvon Martin and the killing of Matthew Shepard and the killing of students at an elementary school in Connecticut. Did the Washington Post even think of covering those local crime stories? No! Oh wait, they did? Like, all the time? Hmm. That’s weird. But did they cover them in terms of policy implications? Asking politicians for their views and such? Oh they did that, too? Hmm. So weird. Oh, and Sarah Kliff herself wrote one of those stories? Well, gosh, I’m so confused.

And what policies could possibly be under discussion with this Gosnell trial? Other than, you know, abortion clinic hiring practices? And enforcement of sanitary conditions? And laws on abortion practices that extend to killing live infants by beheading them? And the killing of their mothers? And state or federal oversight of clinics with records of botched abortions? And pain medication practices? And how to handle the racist practices of some clinics? And how big of a problem this is (don’t tell anyone but another clinic nearby to Gosnell was shut down this week over similar sanitation concerns)? And disposal of babies’ bodies? And discussion of whether it’s cool to snip baby’s spines after they’re born? And how often are abortion clinics inspected anyway? What are the results of inspections? When emergency rooms take in victims of botched abortions, do they report that? How did this clinic go 17 years without an inspection? Gosh, I just can’t think of a single health policy angle here. Can you?

By the way, Neil Simpson tried to do a search on MSNBC for “Kermit Gosnell” and he got no results. I did a search for “Gosnell” and got no results, too. This is why mainstream media is dying. No one believes that they can tell the truth about anything. They’re just working for the Democrat Party, not doing journalism.

Related posts

• Washington Post writer explains why she refuses to report on Gosnell case
• Finally: liberal USA Today reports on Kermit Gosnell infanticide case
• New testimony from another ex-employee of the Kermit Gosnell abortion clinic
• Assistant to Kermit Gosnell admits to killing ten born-alive babies
• Mark Steyn on big government and the violence of abortion
  
• From January 19th, 2011: State regulators ignored abortionist who killed born-alive infants with scissors

 

Filed under: News, Abortion, Bias, Broadcast News, Campaign Contribution, Contributions, Donate, Donations, Drive-By Media, Feminism, Gosnell, Infanticide, Journalism, Kermit Gosnell, Left-Wing Bias, Left-Wing Media, Mainstream Media, Media Bias, News Media, Philadelphia

Finally: liberal USA Today reports on Kermit Gosnell infanticide case

Liberal columnist Kirsten Powers writes about the Kermit Gosnell case in liberal USA Today. (H/T Ian L., Mary, Stuart S.)

Full text:

Infant beheadings. Severed baby feet in jars. A child screaming after it was delivered alive during an abortion procedure. Haven’t heard about these sickening accusations?

It’s not your fault. Since the murder trial of Pennsylvania abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell began March 18, there has been precious little coverage of the case that should be on every news show and front page. The revolting revelations of Gosnell’s former staff, who have been testifying to what they witnessed and did during late-term abortions, should shock anyone with a heart.

NBC-10 Philadelphia reported that, Stephen Massof, a former Gosnell worker, “described how he snipped the spinal cords of babies, calling it, ‘literally a beheading. It is separating the brain from the body.” One former worker, Adrienne Moton, testified that Gosnell taught her his “snipping” technique to use on infants born alive.

Massof, who, like other witnesses, has himself pleaded guilty to serious crimes, testified “It would rain fetuses. Fetuses and blood all over the place.” Here is the headline the Associated Press put on a story about his testimony that he saw 100 babies born and then snipped: “Staffer describes chaos at PA abortion clinic.”

“Chaos” isn’t really the story here. Butchering babies that were already born and were older than the state’s 24-week limit for abortions is the story. There is a reason the late Democratic senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan called this procedure infanticide.

Planned Parenthood recently claimed that the possibility of infants surviving late-term abortions was “highly unusual.” The Gosnell case suggests otherwise.

Regardless of such quibbles, about whether Gosnell was killing the infants one second after they left the womb instead of partially inside or completely inside the womb — as in a routine late-term abortion — is merely a matter of geography. That one is murder and the other is a legal procedure is morally irreconcilable.

A Lexis-Nexis search shows none of the news shows on the three major national television networks has mentioned the Gosnell trial in the last three months. The exception is when Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan hijacked a segment on Meet the Press meant to foment outrage over an anti-abortion rights law in some backward red state.

The Washington Post has not published original reporting on this during the trial and The New York Times saw fit to run one original story on A-17 on the trial’s first day. They’ve been silent ever since, despite headline-worthy testimony.

Let me state the obvious. This should be front page news. When Rush Limbaugh attacked Sandra Fluke, there was non-stop media hysteria. The venerable NBC Nightly News’ Brian Williams intoned, “A firestorm of outrage from women after a crude tirade from Rush Limbaugh,” as he teased a segment on the brouhaha. Yet, accusations of babies having their heads severed — a major human rights story if there ever was one — doesn’t make the cut.

You don’t have to oppose abortion rights to find late-term abortion abhorrent or to find the Gosnell trial eminently newsworthy. This is not about being “pro-choice” or “pro-life.” It’s about basic human rights.

The deafening silence of too much of the media, once a force for justice in America, is a disgrace.

Whenever I see things like this (the media’s silence about some atrocity committed by the secular left) it reminds me why I have a strong belief in a literal eternal Hell. When you cover up the harming of innocents in order to protect something selfish like the irresponsible use of sex, that’s pure evil. We do not kill other innocent people just so that we can protect our “right” to get drunk and hook up. And we certainly should not subsidize it, nor celebrate it, as Barack Obama and the Democrat Party do. That is wrong.

Related posts

• Washington Post writer explains why she refuses to report on Gosnell case
• Finally: liberal USA Today reports on Kermit Gosnell infanticide case
• New testimony from another ex-employee of the Kermit Gosnell abortion clinic
• Assistant to Kermit Gosnell admits to killing ten born-alive babies
• Mark Steyn on big government and the violence of abortion
  
• From January 19th, 2011: State regulators ignored abortionist who killed born-alive infants with scissors

Filed under: News, Abortion, Bias, Broadcast News, Campaign Contribution, Contributions, Donate, Donations, Drive-By Media, Feminism, Gosnell, Infanticide, Journalism, Kermit Gosnell, Left-Wing Bias, Left-Wing Media, Mainstream Media, Media Bias, News Media, Philadelphia

New testimony from another ex-employee of the Kermit Gosnell abortion clinic

Dina sent me the latest on this story, from the UK Daily Mail.

Excerpt:

A medical school graduate has given a graphic account of working at a Philadelphia abortion clinic and how he routinely saw babies born alive and then killed with scissors

Stephen Massof, 50, of Pittsburgh, was giving evidence at the trial of his former boss Kermit Gosnell on Thursday.

Gosnell, 72, is accused of killing seven live babies at the Philadelphia Women’s Medical Society clinic and a woman who was administered too much anesthesia.

[...]Massof, who is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to the murder of two newborns at the clinic, revealed Thursday that he witnessed an abortion at 26 weeks – two weeks beyond the 24-week limit in the state.

He also claimed he saw about 100 babies born alive and then ‘snipped’ with surgical scissors in the back of the neck, to ensure their ‘demise’.

He also spoke of the gruesome scenes at the clinic which was allegedly found dirty and rundown with rusting surgical instruments.

‘It would rain fetuses. Fetuses and blood all over the place. It is literally a beheading. It is separating the brain from the body,’ he told NBC.

He also alleges the clinic’s ultrasound machine was manipulated to make fetuses appear smaller and therefore younger.

[...]Prosecutors allege Gosnell took more than $1 million a year at the clinic where women were charged up to $3,000 for an abortion.

David Freddoso has a column in the Washington Examiner on the media coverage of the Gosnell trial, which has been very different from the media’s coverage of the Sandy Hook shooting.

Excerpt:

Whatever one’s position on gun control, the appropriately heavy coverage of the Sandy Hook massacre at least served a public purpose by starting a discussion about mass shootings.

At its most thoughtful, the debate considered what measures might have prevented the massacre and which could be squared with Americans’ constitutional rights.

At its worst, the debate suffered from media cheerleading for panic gun control legislation — as in, “pass something, anything!” — including but not limited to such left-leaning figures as CNN’s Piers Morgan.

In stark contrast, television coverage of Gosnell’s trial has been “hard to find,” as the Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan put it very charitably last Sunday on “Meet the Press.”

In fact, not counting Noonan’s allusion, Gosnell’s case has not been mentioned even once on any of the three major networks in the last month (his trial began March 18).

It has received only seven mentions on cable television since it began, one on CNN and six on Fox News. In print, Gosnell’s case has been largely ignored outside of local media outlets in Pennsylvania and Delaware.

It’s not as though there isn’t an obvious connection between the Gosnell case and public policy. Legislators in some states (including Pennsylvania and now Alabama) have acted since Gosnell’s arrest to crack down on the next abortion quack.

The media have collectively and perhaps deliberately failed to draw the obvious connection between the two stories.

I think that the differences in the levels of coverage is useful to show that media bias is not always done by biased reporting. It can also be just the decision of what to report on. You can read my previous post on the peer-reviewed studies that document left-wing media bias.

Filed under: News, ABC, Abortion, Bias, Broadcast News, Campaign Contribution, CBS, CNN, Contributions, Donate, Donations, Drive-By Media, Feminism, Gosnell, Infanticide, Journalism, Kermit Gosnell, Left-Wing Bias, Left-Wing Media, Mainstream Media, Media Bias, MSNBC, NBC, News Media, Pew Research, Philadelphia, Poll, Report, Research, Sandy Hook, Study, Survey