Issa Likens Obama Actions to Trail of Tears, Marching America to Death -- Mediaite

[bsteadman]

Issa Likens Obama Actions to Trail of Tears, Marching America to Death

Mediaite
Tina Nguyen
11/7/2014

Excerpt:

During a party for Sharyl Attkisson‘s new book, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) lavishly praised her work — not just in her new book, Stonewalled, which questions the Obama Administration’s narrative about Benghazi, but in being a voice he saw as tough against the Obama Administration.

Which is a fair and good point to make, but maybe not by comparing it to a genocidal moment in American history:

Issa warned that the country’s democracy will only survive if a press is willing to undertake investigative reporting and work with whistleblowers, crediting journalists like Attkisson as the only way his committee “has been able to succeed at anything.”

“My committee is a desert island if not for a press that will look at something fairly, scrutinize it, but if they see a there, there, report it,” he said. “When an administration says ‘no,’ it’s no different than when Andrew Jackson marched Indians down the Trail of Tears, to their death.”

Issa, who is chairman of the House Oversight Committee, is an unlikely ally for Attkisson: the two have both pursued investigations against the Obama administration on many of the same scandals — Fast and Furious, Benghazi, etc. — to the point where people began accusing Attkisson of being an Issa mouthpiece. “Well if you know me at all, I ain’t nobody’s mouthpiece,” Attkisson said, defending her work while not comparing the White House’s actions to the forced relocation of Native Americans. “I’m not going to take that kind of criticism and let it steer me from the job at hand.

View the complete article, including photo, at:

http://www.mediaite.com/online/issa-...rica-to-death/

[bsteadman]

Attkisson's fairness, tenacity lead to big trouble

Examiner
Anthony Martin, Conservative Examiner
11/8/2014

Excerpt:

Former CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson has proven consistently that she is ultimately fair yet tenacious in following the facts wherever they lead. This has garnered the adoration and accolades of her colleagues in the press. But it has also resulted in her ostracism and outright disdain when her fellow reporters bemoaned the fact that she refused to sweep under the rug damaging information that portrayed Obama and others in his machine in a negative light.

Attkisson's new book, "Stonewalled," describes in detail the woes that came her way when she dared go after Obama and top administration officials, not out of any personal vendetta whatsoever but out of respect for the one thing that defines the role of an investigative reporter -- the discovery and the dissemination of the facts. Attkisson describes herself as a-political with no personal stake in how a story turns out, one way or the other. The facts alone are what matters.

And the facts alone led her to the doorstep of the White House, the State Department, the Justice Department, Homeland Security, the IRS, and every major agency of this administration. But she had to fight the CBS brass tooth and nail to get these facts on the air. And when she succeeded in getting at least part of the story told, she was forced to face the cold shoulder of her colleagues in the press.

Attkisson's reports on Hillary Clinton, the State Department, the Defense Department, and the CIA during the Benghazi massacre of a U.S. ambassador and his staff in Libya were often nixed from being shown on the air. Instead they were relegated to non-frontpage status on the CBS website. Even then she had to fight the top brass in the news division to get the space to make those reports. The same thing happened with the IRS scandal. And while aspects of the scandal were reported on the air, much of the juice of the story was left behind the scenes, buried on obscure pages out of the limelight.

Perhaps the first major scandal of the administration was "Project Gunwalker" or as it was called later "Fast and Furious." Even then, back in 2009 - 2010, Attkisson was instrumental in getting the story of the scandal told on the national stage.

Investigative reporters David Codrea of The Examiner and Mike Vanderboegh of Sipsey Street Irregulars had become aware that something was amiss within the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) concerning a gun smuggling scheme initiated by the federal government. The ATF had elicited the help of criminals to make straw purchases of U.S. firearms along the southern border, and then walk them across the border into Mexico where they would be taken directly to the drug cartels. ATF whistleblower agents told the full story to Codrea and Vanderboegh, along with the rationale behind it. The Obama Administration needed proof to bolster its contention that most of the guns used by cartels came from the United States. Armed with this proof, the administration could then make a case for a series of new, stringent gun control laws.

The scheme involved every top agency of the Executive Branch of Government, under the direct supervision of the president. That included Hillary Clinton at State, Janet Napolitano at Homeland Security, and Eric Holder at Justice, just to name a few.

When Codrea and Vanderboegh broke the story, no one in the mainstream media paid attention, not even Fox. The Examiner was the only news outlet to take the lead, and many of its writers/reporters posted daily updates on the scandal for several months.

Then, Sharyl Attkisson at CBS picked up on the story. Almost miraculously, she was able to go on the air with the facts. As soon as Attkisson's investigative report went public, Fox News followed almost immediately as did Katie Pavlich at Townhall. Soon U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., was fully informed of the scandal and put the wheels in motion to get a full investigation rolling at the committee which he chairs in the House -- the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Witnesses were called to testify, including Eric Holder, who did nothing but stonewall the committee, refusing to answer questions or provide documents pertinent to the investigation. In time this would lead to Holder's being cited for Contempt of Congress.

As for Attkisson, her inability to get the CBS News brass to cooperate with investigations that turned up facts that are embarrassing to the Obama Administration became too high a price to pay. Her relationship with CBS was severed. Today she says that she is probably the least socially connected journalist in D.C. When her investigations turned out in favor of Obama or Democrats, she was heartily congratulated. But if they embarrassed Obama and the Democrat machine, she was virtually ignored.
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View the complete article, including photo and video, at:

http://www.examiner.com/article/attk...to-big-trouble