Global Warming Hearing Postponed Due to Snow
February 10th, 2010
FOX News
By Bret Baier
The blizzard conditions here in the nation’s capital have shut down most area federal government activity. A scheduled Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works hearing discussing the impacts of global warming had to be postponed because of the snow and frigid temperatures.
Meantime, Massachusetts Democratic Senator John Kerry tells The Hill newspaper, those who think climate change legislation is dead for the year because of the harsh winter weather are “dead wrong” and guilty of what he calls “inside the Beltway thinking.”
Oklahoma Republican Senator and vocal global warming skeptic James Inhofe used the winter wonderland to have a little fun at the expense of climate activist Al Gore. Inhofe posted on Facebook photos of his family building an igloo near the Capitol, with a sign that read “Al Gore’s new home.” Liberal blog Think Progress didn’t find the joke amusing with Brad Johnson writing: “Scientists have been warning for decades that global warming would increase the severity of winter storms.” More about this in the panel.
Higher Calling
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spent about five minutes at last week’s National Prayer Breakfast talking about helping the late Mother Teresa open an adoption ministry here in Washington, D.C.
But a Christian publication reports the Mother Teresa Home for Infant Children is no longer operating and may never have actually facilitated any adoptions. World Magazine says the ministry’s building was sold in 2002.
Philippe Reines from the State Department tells Fox: “[Hillary Clinton] remains very proud of her work with Mother Teresa in opening this home in 1995. Their partnership is a success story to be emulated.”
Not Funny
And finally, it seems the White House press briefings have been no laughing matter in recent months. Politico reports that instances of laughter, as indicated in official transcripts, have decreased from 179 per month in the first six months of the Obama administration, to 89 per month in the second half of the year.
American Urban radio reporter April Ryan noticed the change: “There are lots of serious questions begging for serious answers. Those questions do not meld with laughter and light banter.”
Click here for the full report
Axelrod and Ailes Meet, but Details Are Few
October 7, 2009
New York Times
By Brian Steltar
Roger Ailes, the chairman of Fox News, met with the White House adviser David Axelrod last month.
And it is a testament to Fox’s influence that that the meeting is newsworthy at all. Politico broke the news Tuesday afternoon, prompting speculation about the nature of the conversation.
A Fox press representative confirmed that the two men met over a cup of coffee last month during Mr. Obama’s visit to the United Nations. The representative called it a “cordial conversation.” Details of the conversation have not dribbled out yet.
“I’ve known Roger for a long time,” Mr. Axelrod told Time magazine in an e-mail message. “We chatted from time to time during the campaign. I was going to be in N.Y., so we got together for a cup of coffee.”
The highly popular Fox News is a perplexing channel for the Obama administration, given its propensity for political commentary by conservatives like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. In June, Mr. Obama said, “I’ve got one television station that is entirely devoted to attacking my administration,” adding, “You’d be hard-pressed if you watched the entire day to find a positive story about me on that front.” The Fox host Bill O’Reilly and others assumed that he was speaking about Fox.
TVNewser notes that Fox News chose not to carry a couple of Mr. Obama’s speeches last month, but that “on the Saturday following the Axelrod-Ailes Manhattan chat,” Fox carried the president’s entire speech at a Congressional Black Caucus event “while MSNBC and CNN did not.”
Obama Calls on HuffPost for Iran Question
June 24, 2009 by mike
Filed under Government
June 23, 2009
Politico
by Michael Calderone
In what appeared to be a coordinated exchange, President Obama called on the Huffington Post’s Nico Pitney near the start of his press conference and requested a question directly about Iran.
“Nico, I know you and all across the Internet, we’ve been seeing a lot of reports coming out of Iran,” Obama said, addressing Pitney. “I know there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. Do you have a question?”
Pitney, as if ignoring what Obama had just said, said: “I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian.”
He then noted that the site had solicited questions from people in the country “who were still courageous enough to be communicating online.”
“Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad, and if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn’t that a betrayal of the — of what the demonstrators there are working towards?”
Reporters typically don’t coordinate their questions for the president before press conferences, so it seemed odd that Obama might have an idea what the question would be. Also, it was a departure from White House protocol by calling on The Huffington Post second, in between the AP and Reuters.
CBS Radio’s Mark Knoller, a veteran White House correspondent, said over Twitter it was “very unusual that Obama called on Huffington Post second, appearing to know the issue the reporter would ask about.”
According to POLITICO’s Carol Lee, The Huffington Post reporter was brought out of lower press by deputy press secretary Josh Earnest and placed just inside the barricade for reporters a few minutes before the start of the press conference.
Click here to read the full report and to view the press conference from Politico.
