From The Heritage Foundation:

White House Battle Against Free Speech Grows

Yesterday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton said on Fox News: “This White House supports free speech.” Now, it is hardly comforting to know we have a White House that feels it has to defend that position. It’s akin to saying, ‘this White House supports oxygen,’ but the behavior of senior White House officials over the past few weeks has brought us to this point. A concerted and coordinated effort against cable news channels and their personalities; radio hosts and regular citizens from every walk of life has made Americans across the country fearful of a vengeful Obama administration.

By now, it is common knowledge that the White House asked neighbors to report other neighbors who may disagree. They defended their White House “list” by saying that names wouldn’t be kept. Well, either they’re keeping a list or they’re destroying public records, but either way something wrong is occurring. America agreed.

Then the White House introduced the term “Astro Turf” into our August lexicon by accusing soccer moms, senior citizens, students and regular concerned Americans of getting on buses and disrupting the left’s attempt to overhaul one sixth of our economy without opposition. Speaker Pelosi jumped in on this attack referencing swastikas, and Congressman Brian Baird (D-WA) calling protesters “brown shirts.” Townhalls are apparently supposed to be lovefests as demonstrated by the President’s pep rally yesterday in Portsmouth, NH.

Well these attacks didn’t work either. Instead, townhalls grew more crowded and those folks were able to capture on video Members of Congress taking cell phone calls during questions, refusing to speak to their constituents and union intimidation. So now what? Well if you can’t silence the people, silence the news. The White House yesterday pivoted to blaming Fox News and cable networks for the problem of dissent. A straw man that they have successfully attacked in the past.

But the new development is their potential use of closely affiliated groups, like one recently operated by top White House advisor Van Jones, to launch organized attacks on commentators like Glenn Beck and Fox News. Apparently Beck, certainly no friend of the Obama administration and never advertised as such, said something that the White House chorus deemed offensive enough to launch an underground attack on his show’s advertisers.  Whether Beck said something controversial or not about the President’s reaction to the Henry Louis Gates arrest is not the question.  But is it appropriate for the White House to be judge and jury of the fourth estate, and are they using Chicago-style tactics to silence their critics?

As of two days ago, Color of Change changed their website bios to marginalize its founder Van Jones’ role in the organization. The group itself is small in support with barely 500 facebook followers, just over 100 twitter followers.  This organization is not built on massive grassroots organizing.  But with a small following, they were able to convince a handful of advertisers to abandon the Beck show.  Making fun of cable news is one thing, but is the White House associated with a campaign to not only discredit their critics but also strangle the financial footing these businesses rely on?  These are questions that need answering.

One would expect a sympathetic journalist to push a ‘Fox News extremist agenda’ story in the days to come to solidify that the White House was right, and cable news was wrong all along.  President Obama should denounce any group that works to silence White House critics, especially one his top advisor leads.  He should open up his townhalls to a legitimately open audience and instead of blaming the opposition for the state of his health care plan (whatever that plan may be); he should go back to the drawing board and develop an alternative that recognizes the overwhelming voice of America heard this August.

From NewsMax.com:

Emanuel’s Power Grows in Obama White House

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is emerging not only as the most powerful presidential aide in the Obama administration, but one of the influential Oval Office power brokers in a generation, according to The New York Times.The Times reported Sunday that Emanuel’s power is now so sweeping that he recently vetoed the hiring of Sidney Blumenthal by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Blumenthal had generated too much bad blood in the Obama ranks during the campaign, Emanuel bluntly told her, and could not join the administration.

The anecdote also illustrates just how far Emanuel has come: 16 years ago Secretary Clinton, then first lady, had Emanuel demoted as a senior official in Bill Clinton’s White House after he ruffled feathers with his aggressive style.

The son of former Israeli freedom fighters, Emanuel is the principal author of Mr. Obama’s do-everything-at-once strategy. His success may very much ride on how well and how quickly the administration stabilizes the economy and financial markets, overhauls the health care system and winds down one war while successfully prosecuting another.

And while he’s known as a bitter partisan fighter, even some Republicans credit Emanuel, a former House member from Illinois, with serving as a major bridge between the GOP and the Obama White House.

“I’ve heard more from Rahm in six months than I heard from Andy Card in six years, and Card’s daughter worked for me,” said former Representative Tom Davis, Republican of Virginia, referring to a chief of staff under President George W. Bush.

Emanuel now must shepherd healthcare legislation into law for the White House, a task that is growing harder by the day.

“He’s about to be tested; he’s spinning a lot of plates over there and he breaks a lot of china,” said Joel Johnson, a close friend and fellow veteran official of the Clinton White House told the Times. “They’ve had some good success early on, but they’ve got a number of major pieces of the agenda in the queue, and it’s going to be really difficult.”

The caricature of Mr. Emanuel as a profanity-spewing operative has given way to a more nuanced view: as a profanity-spewing operative with a keen understanding of how to employ power on behalf of a new president with relatively little experience in Washington, the Times reported.

“He can juggle 20 or 25 things in one day, in part by delegating and in part by picking only the things that matter,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a Republican congressman recruited by Mr. Emanuel to serve in the cabinet, told the Times.

Where Mr. Obama is known for cool detachment, Mr. Emanuel presses until the breaking point, then presses some more. “The president has a zenlike quality,” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod. “Rahm is a pile driver.”

From GOPUSA.com:

Watch out! Obama is creating White House ‘Enemies’ List

Yesterday I wrote about “Chicago-style” politics in the White House. I had no idea that the actions of Obama and his team would soon be going from bad to worse. Not only are they trying to intimidate sitting governors and members of Congress, but now they are trying to intimidate regular citizens.

The White House is now putting the hammer down on people who disagree with Obama’s health care proposals, and they want to know who these people are. In fact, the White House is encouraging people to report any “fishy” e-mails they receive. This is beyond “Chicago-style” politics. This type of intimidation cuts at the heart of free speech. Speak out against Obama, and you’ll find yourself on a new White House “enemies” list.

There are two plans that Obama and his team are executing in order to raise support for their massive, left-wing health care plan. Neither one involves speaking to the merits of the plan. The first is to group all dissenters as part of some right-wing “mob” which is specifically organized to defeat Obama’s plans.

Congressmen are now returning to their districts and are facing angry constituents at their townhall meetings. People are frustrated and irate that Obama is imposing massive debt on the American people and calling for even more spending and government control on issues such as health care. Here’s one example:

The Democrats are saying that those angry citizens like you see in the video are part of some organized, underground effort to subvert Obama. Here is what the DNC is saying in their latest press release:

The Republicans and their allied groups – desperate after losing two consecutive elections and every major policy fight on Capitol Hill – are inciting angry mobs of a small number of rabid right wing extremists funded by K Street Lobbyists to disrupt thoughtful discussions about the future of health care in America taking place in Congressional Districts across the country.

However, much like we saw at the McCain-Palin rallies last year where crowds were baited with cries of ‘socialist,’ ‘communist,’ and where the birthers movement was born – these mobs of extremists are not interested in having a thoughtful discussion about the issues – but like some Republican leaders have said – they are interested in ‘breaking’ the President and destroying his Presidency.

The statement goes on to say that “despite the headline grabbing nature of these angry mobs and their disruptions of events, they are not reflective of where the American people are on the issues – or the hundreds of thousands of thoughtful discussions taking place around kitchen tables, water coolers and in homes.”

The Democrats are right about one thing… there ARE thoughtful discussions going on around the country, and more and more of those discussions revolve around how Obama is spending this country into oblivion and imposing more government on them then they ever imagined.

Their plan is so transparent, but it is up to the American people to pay attention. Obama is losing support in the polls. His health care plan is on the ropes because so many Americans don’t like it. Yet, according to Obama and his team, the only people who don’t like the plan are those involved in some kind of right-wing “mob” conspiracy. According to Obama’s team, the average American couldn’t possibly be opposed to socialist policies.

But now, the Obama White House is taking things to a new level. They are actually requesting that people report on other citizens who voice opposition to Obama’s plans. This is an unprecedented move at intimidation and puts direct pressure on Americans’ First Amendment rights.

According to a post on the White House web site, “scary chain emails and videos are starting to percolate on the internet, breathlessly claiming, for example, to ‘uncover’ the truth about the President’s health insurance reform positions.”

Scary chain e-mails? Again, Obama’s team is trying to label any information that is counter to their plans, not as honest disagreement, but as an organized effort by fringe groups to attack Obama. Again, based on their wording, they are trying to drive the message home that no “normal” American is opposed to Obama.

The deceiving headlines are coming straight from her mouth! And… the clips she uses show us that. As Obama pushes for a new government-run health insurance provider, it will DIRECTLY affect current plans. You can read a host of op-eds on this subject.

The post on the White House web site goes further, stating:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

Now they are asking Americans to report “fishy” information. This is crazy! What will the White House do with this information?

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) is calling Obama out on such tactics. In a letter sent to Obama, Cornyn writes:

I am not aware of any precedent for a President asking American citizens to report their fellow citizens to the White House for pure political speech that is deemed “fishy” or otherwise inimical to the White House’s political interests.

By requesting that citizens send “fishy” emails to the White House, it is inevitable that the names, email addresses, IP addresses, and private speech of U.S. citizens will be reported to the White House. You should not be surprised that these actions taken by your White House staff raise the specter of a data collection program. As Congress debates health care reform and other critical policy matters, citizen engagement must not be chilled by fear of government monitoring the exercise of free speech rights.

Cornyn asks a number of questions that all Americans should be asking regarding this plan to collect information on citizens opposed to Obama. Namely:

• How do you intend to use the names, email addresses, IP addresses, and identities of citizens who are reported to have engaged in “fishy” speech?
• How do you intend to notify citizens who have been reported for “fishy” speech?
• What action do you intend to take against citizens who have been reported for engaging in “fishy” speech?

Cornyn then asks a brilliant question: “Do your own past statements qualify as ‘disinformation’? For example, is it ‘disinformation’ to note that in 2003 you said: “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care plan”?

Obama is trying to chip away at our rights. All one has to do is look at what he’s already done. He has stated in the past that he wants to do away with private health insurance. Now he’s trying to spin it that he doesn’t. He is also trying to stop any disagreement to his plans by fear and intimidation. If you disagree with him, you are not a concerned citizen… you are part of an angry mob. And… if you are part of an angry mob, it is up to Obama’s Americans to report you. Does this sound like the land of the free and the home of the brave to you?

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