By Tom Blumer | July 25, 2015 | 11:48 PM EDT

In a speech at a Republican Lincoln Day dinner in West Virginia earlier this week, Murray Energy Corp. founder and CEO Robert Murray decried the Obama administration's determination to, as described at the financial news site SNL.com (to be clear, no relation to Saturday Night Live), "bypass the states and their utility commissions, the U.S. Congress and the Constitution in favor of putting the U.S. EPA in charge of the nation's electric grid."

In the establishment press, Murray's speech was only covered in a single snarky paragraph by Darren Goode at the Politico titled "Don't Hold Back Now" — obviously attempting to paint Murray as unreasonable and extreme — and a writeup at the Wheeling (WV) Intelligencer. After all, what does Murray know? He's only the head of the largest company in an industry which is still responsible for fueling 39 percent of America's electrical grid, and the majority of it in many states. Who would want to give him any visibility, as if he has anything valuable to say? Well, I do.

By Tom Blumer | March 30, 2015 | 8:00 PM EDT

UPDATE, March 31: This morning in an email, the AP's Lederman pointed me to a Saturday afternoon "Big Story" item time-stamped the day before the report to which this blog post below links. For whatever reason, that earlier "Big Story" item has more detail than what appears, despite the Sunday time stamp, to be Lederman's original report posted at the AP's national site. In that "Big Story" item, Lederman writes that "Like last time, the White House arranged for the reporters covering the president to wait at a separate location nearby where Obama won't be visible," and that "Previous administrations have allowed brief news media coverage during presidential rounds of golf. Obama's policy generally is not to allow reporters to observe him." Lederman did not mention reporters' decision to stay in a shed rather than return to their hotels. The posts' point about reporters' willingness to submit to what I described as "dismissive, insulting treatment" stands.

At the Associated Press on Sunday, Josh "Lapdog" Lederman filed a brief report telling readers the names of the captains of industry who would be golfing with President Barack Obama that day. Bigwigs with the Floridian, the Boston Celtics, and (yes) even Halliburton, the former source of all evil during the Bush 43 administration, were in the foursome.

Lederman "somehow" failed to note that the White House ordered reporters back to their hotels, and that when they refused, they were banished to a shed. Paul Bedard at the Washington Examiner has the details Lederman didn't care to mention, even in passing:

By Tom Blumer | April 29, 2011 | 3:23 PM EDT

Yesterday evening (late afternoon West Coast time), Phil Bronstein at the San Francisco Chronicle informed his readers that one of its reporters had been banned by the Obama administration:

The hip, transparent and social media-loving Obama administration is showing its analog roots. And maybe even some hypocrisy highlights.

 

White House officials have banished one of the best political reporters in the country from the approved pool of journalists covering presidential visits to the Bay Area for using now-standard multimedia tools to gather the news.

By Noel Sheppard | November 3, 2008 | 10:21 AM EST

On Sunday, my colleague P. J. Gladnick helped break the story about Barack Obama discussing how his carbon cap and trade proposals would bankrupt coal-fired power plants.

Hot Air's Ed Morrissey has found a video of that interview with the San Francisco Chronicle (embedded right).

Sunday evening, the Chronicle's Carla Marinucci refuted claims that she and her paper did anything to hide this information from the public.

Morrissey took issue with Marinucci's position:

By P.J. Gladnick | August 28, 2008 | 4:21 PM EDT

What do you do when you are the mayor of San Francisco and your poorly timed push for gay marriages is blamed for your party's loss in a presidential election, you get yourself involved in a sleazy sex scandal where you get caught sleeping with the wife of your campaign manager, and a much criticized policy of declaring the municipality you represent a "sanctuary city" results in a multiple murder by an illegal alien? Why you get the San Francisco Chronicle to write a glowing story about you enthusing about how you are a "hotshot to watch" with a bright political future on the horizon. Such is the case with San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, no stranger to other puff pieces such as this June story in Time magazine. San Francisco Chronicle political writers Joe Garofoli and Carla Marinucci use Newsom's appearance at the Democrat convention in San Francisco as a launch platform for gushing over their mayor's future:

As Bill Clinton and Joe Biden dominated center stage Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom was presiding over "Unconventional '08," a street party held in an artsy warehouse corner of the city featuring indie bands and a knot of people young enough to be Biden's grandchildren. There, mingling beneath an art gallery facade full of iconic images of Sen. Barack Obama was the evening's host - the former Sen. Hillary Clinton delegate Newsom.

Before pouring sweet syrup over Newsom, Garofoli and Marinucci take us along on a brief but unpleasant trip down memory lane:

By P.J. Gladnick | July 13, 2008 | 9:09 AM EDT

Did you know that John F. Kennedy had a whole bunch of pets and now Barack Obama is planning on getting a pet dog too? JFK gave a speech in Berlin and now Obama is preparing to do the same. JFK also spoke at a stadium during the 1960 Democrat convention and guess what? Obama is also going to give a speech during the Democrat convention this August at Mile High Stadium in Denver. The parallels between Obama and JFK are unmistakable.

By Lyndsi Thomas | June 20, 2008 | 4:21 PM EDT

San Francisco Chronicle’s Carla Marinucci dutifully dusted off the same liberal talking points we hear every four years about Republican nominees: the women in their own party hate them. In her front page article, Marinucci found no conservative Republican women to defend McCain or critique him from the right, but she found three Republican, including Obama backer Susan Eisenhower, and two Democratic women to slam McCain. But as might be expected in the liberal media, the largest reason these liberal Republican women won’t vote for McCain was chalked up to "women’s rights," code words for abortion. The article devoted a special section to McCain's stance on abortion. Of course this ignores the fact that millions of socially conservative Republican women backed equally pro-life candidates such as Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney in the primaries.